Verdi’s Requiem is a two-hour oratorio with orchestra and a good-size choir. Rehearsals for that strenuous work began to run longer and longer. The singers had been practicing for months in damp, dark, cold basements and they sang by rote. They had committed their parts to memory! I was overwhelmed by their technical and artistic perfection. It was as fine as I had ever heard. There was something special taking place. These men and women were dedicated vocalists to be sure, but they were impelled by a greater force, a statement of the liberation of their souls. They were prisoners in body only. Unable to resist by physical force, their artistry was a solid demonstration of spiritual resistance.
I didn’t understand at first why Maestro Schächter chose to perform a Catholic mass in Latin for a Jewish concentration camp. But as we rehearsed it became clear. It was the content of the Requiem. There was a message in the libretto, words that no Jew would dare say to a Nazi commander. These very words were going to be sung right into the Nazis’ faces in front of the Red Cross inspectors.
“How great will be the judge when he comes to examine!”
“All that is hidden shall appear, nothing shall be unavenged.”
“Day of wrath, day of wrath, when the wicked shall be judged!”
“When the heavens and earth are trembling.”
Schächter is brilliant. The Nazis will boast how the inmates presented the Requiem for them and for the Red Cross without having a clue what the Latin words meant. The Nazis will clap for a performance that mocks them. Brilliant.
As the date approached, Maestro Schächter made the decision to perform the work solely with piano accompaniment. It was impossible to have orchestra members playing from memory without sheet music and coordinate with the chorus in so difficult a production. An outstanding pianist, Alice Herz Sommer, whose family had played with Gustav Mahler, would provide the instrumental accompaniment on the piano. I needed to be a part of this performance and I asked Maestro Schächter if I could be given the job of turning Miss Sommer’s pages.
The morning of June 23, the camp was clean and bright. Everyone was told to dress in their best clothes and fix their hair. The shelves in the phony bakery shop were loaded with bread and pastries. Women were prominently placed around the camp preparing fresh vegetables for dinner. People had been told to smile and sing. They even staged a soccer game and placed hundreds of cheering residents on the sidelines.
The inspectors walked through the camp nodding, pointing and smiling. SS guards chaperoned them. No prisoner dared come up to tell the truth. They entered the concert hall and took their seats. There they sat with dozens of SS in full uniform ready to experience the Requiem. At the appropriate time, the chorus filed in, followed by Maestro Schächter.
Maestro Schächter had done a masterful job in preparing the chorus for such a long and serious piece. They were as accomplished as any I’d heard. In truth, Rafael Schächter was a genius. It was obvious that the prisoners of Theresienstadt took great pride in what they had accomplished, and their triumph was felt by every resident in the camp. The Nazis had stolen their liberty, taken their belongings, enslaved them in concentration camps, but in the end, they had not deprived them of their artistry, their talents and their souls. They did not quell the music. It will forever be remembered that Theresienstadt was a tribute, not to Hitler’s scheming mind but to the resilience and soul of the Jewish inmates.
I looked around the room. Commandant Rahm, SS camp guards, Nazi officers and the Red Cross inspectors were all silent. The uniformed Nazis sat at tables, smugly smoking cigarettes. They could have been watching paint dry. They were clay soldiers, incapable of emotion.
As far as the International Red Cross inspection was concerned, the hoax was a success. The inspectors gave glowing reports about the camp and how well-treated the residents were. It was so successful that Goebbels decided to send a film crew to Theresienstadt to make a propaganda movie. It was initially to be called The Führer Gives a Village to the Jews, but the name was later changed to Theresienstadt: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement.
Although some deportations resumed after the Red Cross visit, many in the orchestra and chorus remained exempt to make the film. The actual filming took place between September 1 and September 12. The orchestra sat for several sessions. The Ghetto Swingers played before “happy” actors and actresses in the park. Children were shown playing on the swings and eating bread slathered with butter. When the filming was complete and the film crew had departed, Theresienstadt returned to its true purpose—a bare-bones transit camp established to collect Jews and send them off to death camps and labor camps.
In the fall of 1944, the war was coming closer to Theresienstadt. With the Allies closing in, the Nazis stepped up the pace of deportations. In the fall months, 18,400 men, women and children were deported. Their names were chosen by Rabbi Murmelstein, the last remaining council elder. On October 17, 1944, the great Rafael Schächter and many of the chorus members were packed into boxcars and sent east to Auschwitz.
For whatever reason, Gabi and I remained off the lists. Perhaps it was because of my initial assignment, though I will never know. As year-end approached and the population of the camp decreased, it was only a matter of time until everyone would be sent to another camp. Theresienstadt was scheduled to be closed.
On February 4, 1945, Rabbi Murmelstein came to see me. We walked outside into the square and talked privately.
“Tomorrow a train will leave. It will not go east to Auschwitz but will travel south to Switzerland. Himmler and Kaltenbrunner have agreed to free twelve hundred Terezín inmates in exchange for five million Swiss francs deposited into escrow by world Jewish organizations. The money has been raised and deposited in Switzerland.”
The rabbi handed a small piece of paper to me. On it was typed S174. “Show this to the guards at the gate and they will let you on the train. May God bless you, Ada.”
I looked at the paper. It only had one number.
“What about my daughter?”
“We know that Gabrielle is not your daughter. I have no extra passes. Someone will take care of her here in the camp. I’m sorry.” He stood and left the building.
There was only one thing I could do. I called Gabrielle over to me and whispered to her, “Gabi, let’s go pack our bag. Tomorrow there will be a wonderful trip. Freedom awaits. No more Theresienstadt. No more concentration camp. Tomorrow you will see the beautiful mountains of Switzerland. Just like you saw in Grenoble.”
Gabi was thrilled. She had a smile from ear to ear. She was bouncing on her feet. Neither one of us could sleep that night.
It is a cold February morning in Theresienstadt and the Switzerland group is assembling in the square. Gabi is bundled up in her warmest clothes. She has her little bag and some of the pictures she has painted. She is excited about going to Switzerland. The last thing I will do is hide my memoir in her duffel bag and kiss my sweet daughter good-bye.
My dear Gabi, you are all I have in the world. You are the sole remaining member of our family. That is why I have written this story in such detail, so you will know everything about the woman who loves you so, about your grandma, my papa and your extended new family. It will be just like I am there to tell you bedtime stories for the rest of your life. Read this story and I will always be there with you. I will never leave you.
All my love forever,
Mama
SEVENTY-TWO
Pienza, September 2017
“THAT’S IT?” LIAM SAID with tears in his eyes. “Cat, please tell me I’m missing some pages.”
Catherine shook her head. “I thought the same thing when I came to the end, but Floria told me that she sent us the entire manuscript.”
“She didn’t finish. How could she leave us hanging like that?”
“She did finish, Liam. She wrote the manuscript during her time in Theresienstadt. She wrote it so that Gabi would know everything about her adopted mother and her extended family. She finished her
story, put it in Gabi’s bag and put Gabi on the train.”
“So Gabi went on to freedom in place of Ada. It makes me so sad for both of them.”
“Ada sacrificed her life to save Gabi. Isn’t that what a mother would do?”
“That might have been the end of the story in Theresienstadt, but it’s obviously not the end of the story. Gabi is here. What happened next? What happened in Switzerland? How did Gabi end up here on the farm?”
“I guess you’ll have to get that information from Gabi.”
Liam shook his head. “Not a chance. It’s all locked up. Just like Ada said, she locked away those memories.”
“At least we know who Gabi is and why she is here. We know our client better and can more effectively represent her interests. That’s why she wanted us to read the manuscript. But we have a court date in two days, and unless Gunther has found some new information, we’re in trouble.”
“He told us to call him at noon. The subpoenas were returnable this morning.”
“Let’s head over to Giulia’s and make the call.”
* * *
“GUNTHER, YOU HAVE LIAM, Catherine and Giulia here on the phone. Please tell us you found something.”
“A treasure trove, my friends. The subpoenas were returned this morning along with all of the corporate and trust information. Additionally, I assigned two young associates to research the principals and they did a terrific job. Where do you want me to start?”
“Let’s start with Gabriella’s property, the one supposedly owned by Quercia Company.”
“Quercia was formed on May 18, 1944. It is an Italian corporation with a single shareholder, the Totenkopf Trust. That name ought to be enough to alert your judge that the property was seized by a Nazi-owned entity, but we’ve got more. We know that the sole beneficiary of the Totenkopf Trust was initially Elsa Fruman, and I have had my staff research her. She was a socialite during the thirties and forties. A very good-looking woman. There are pictures of her in the Völkischer Beobachter newspaper at various social functions. Oftentimes, she can be seen arm-in-arm with a uniformed Nazi.”
“Don’t tell me,” Liam said, “one of the Nazis was Herbert Kleiner.”
“Obersturmführer Herbert Kleiner. The very same.”
“But I thought he died. He was shot to death by Kurt Koenig.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was shot, but he survived. Although Kleiner was married to Marta Kleiner, records show that Herbert and Elsa Fruman rented an apartment together in Berlin. Records also show that Gerda Fruman was born to Elsa in 1947.”
“The birth certificate doesn’t have the name of her father,” Catherine said.
“Well, can you blame him? He was married to Marta Kleiner and already had two boys. Gerda’s birth certificate doesn’t name Kleiner, nor does she share his name for obvious reasons, but the certificate lists Elsa’s address in Berlin. It’s Kleiner’s apartment.”
“So, in 1944 Kleiner arrests Friede, Ada and Gabi, and sends them off to a concentration camp. He knows they will never return, and he transfers their property to his mistress.”
“Right. Except he doesn’t really transfer it. He has no deed. He just puts the name in the registry book.”
“Marvelous. Great job, Gunther!”
“Now on to VinCo. VinCo was also formed on May 18, 1944, by Hermann Rugel, the same Berlin attorney, an attorney known to be a ranking party member. Same organizational structure. Italian corporation, German trust and German beneficiary. The Wolfsangel Trust had three beneficiaries. Want to guess?”
“Herbert Kleiner and his two boys.”
“Right, you are. Herbert is long dead, but his sons are still alive. They still own and operate the company. They are very wealthy and very private. I would not doubt for a moment that they were still connected with the neo-Nazi network.”
“There’s one problem here,” Giulia said. “The registry books show that the individual farmers deeded their properties to VinCo in 1944.”
“Well, we don’t know if the signatures are genuine, and Kleiner could have forced the farmers to sign their names, but what we do know is that four of those farmers were arrested by Kleiner in May 1944 and sent off to detention camps. German records were kept of the arrests and disposition of detainees.”
“Ada didn’t write that Friede’s neighbors were Jewish,” Catherine said.
“It wouldn’t matter. The Nazis were arresting partisans, collaborators and enablers and sending them to camps as well.”
“Now we see why VinCo fought so hard to own Gabriella’s property,” Catherine said. “When Gerda died without children, her property might have been claimed by some cousins or distant relatives. There could have been a court fight over who had a rightful claim to Quercia. Undoubtedly the lawyers would have done their research and discovered that the property had been seized. All of this history would have come out.”
“If Quercia was found to have been a Nazi front, then wouldn’t VinCo have been next?” Liam said.
“Exactly. VinCo couldn’t take the chance of being discovered. It’s a billion-dollar company. They had to keep the seizures hidden. While Fruman was still alive, the Kleiners let the property stand in her name. That may have been Herbert’s wishes. But on her death, they couldn’t let some strangers start to investigate the titles.”
“Gunther, we can’t thank you enough,” Catherine said. “Would you please scan and e-mail all of the documents to Giulia? We need to prepare an emergency motion, and I want to attach all of the evidence for the judge to review before we appear. Would you please make certified copies of all the relevant documents, including the pictures, and overnight them to us? We only have two days to present our emergency motion.”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll e-mail all the documents to you right now and I’ll bring the originals to you personally and testify to their authenticity.”
“Oh, that’s very generous, but you don’t have to do that,” Catherine said.
“You never know what the judge will require, and besides, I love Siena in the fall.”
When they ended the call, Catherine and Giulia smiled at each other. “We know what we have to do now. Let’s get all this information into an emergency motion, attach everything that Gunther sends to us and set this matter for immediate hearing.”
SEVENTY-THREE
Siena, September 2017
JUDGE RIGGIONI’S COURTROOM WAS buzzing. Catherine and Giulia sat at the counsel table to the judge’s left. Lenzini leaned back in a chair at the counsel table to the right and smiled smugly. Gabriella, Floria and Liam sat in the first row with Gunther Strauss.
The courtroom was called to order and Judge Riggioni entered. “We are here this morning on Signora Vincenzo’s motion to reopen the proofs and vacate my previous order awarding possession to VinCo. I have read the motion and all the attached exhibits, including those certified by German counsel, Gunther Strauss, who is present in my court today. Thank you for bringing them, Herr Strauss, and welcome to Siena. Are the parties ready to proceed?”
Giulia stood. “The petitioner, Gabriella Vincenzo, is ready, Signor Presidente.”
“The respondent VinCo is not ready,” Lenzini said, leaning back in his seat at the table. “This so-called emergency motion, defective on its face, has taken me by complete surprise. To use an American expression, I’m being sandbagged.”
“Really?” the judge said. “Which part of this motion sandbags you, Avvocato Lenzini? What information is in the motion that you didn’t know before today? Did you know when VinCo was formed? Do you know who your clients are? Are you familiar with the Kleiner family?”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course.”
The judge spread his hands. “Then how are you surprised?”
“I need time. Lots of time. I didn’t expect to argue these issues in this court.”
“No doubt. I guess you didn’t expect the missing registry book to be an issue, or the murdered registrar clerk, or the lack of a deed f
rom Signor Partini to be raised as an issue, but here they are. Perhaps the fundamental issue we consider here today is whether the Vincenzo property may have been seized by Nazis, Fascists or their collaborators. Is that also an issue you didn’t expect to address?”
“That is correct, I did not expect to address any of those issues.”
“Hmm. It is unfortunate for your client that Signora Vincenzo has hired more persistent attorneys this time around. I have read the motion and the attachments, and I deem those issues to be material and ripe for consideration. Avvocato Lenzini, there is a difference between not expecting to argue an issue and not being given an opportunity to produce evidence. Do you agree?”
“Yes, absolutely. Of course, I do. That’s the point.”
The judge smiled. “The latter would be unfair, wouldn’t it? I mean if I ordered you to proceed to trial without giving you an opportunity to produce evidence that you have, that would be unfair to you, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But, that’s just what happened to Signora Vincenzo two months ago, isn’t it?”
“No, that’s different. Her attorneys didn’t come to court.”
“And isn’t that strange as well? It seems that her previous attorneys, for some unexplained reason, lost interest in the case and ignored the very evidence that has been presented to me today. Do you suppose they were somehow induced to ignore all that evidence? Do you suppose there was unethical persuasion?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know.”
“Tell me, Avvocato Lenzini, if I give you more time, what evidence can you produce to counter the assertion that VinCo never obtained a deed in 1944 from the previous owner, Signor Partini?”
“None, there is no deed to be found.”
“I see. What evidence could you produce to show that the property was lawfully purchased by Herbert Kleiner’s mistress in 1944?”
“I will not have that.”
“Do you intend to offer evidence that Herbert Kleiner was not a Nazi Obersturmführer in May 1944, the date your client allegedly obtained title?”
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