Toward the end of the afternoon, Lydia sent an office boy down to the shop floor. As he passed Rita, he nodded toward the office. “She wants you up there.”
Rita finished her buttonhole, rose, and moved along the floor to the foot of the office steps. Lydia came out of the office, down the stairs, and led her into a storage shed. “Listen carefully. I will have a set of identity papers for you tomorrow. If there is anything you want to take with you, pack a case. Take it to the back wall behind your place tonight at ten thirty. Someone will take it from you. You cannot carry a case out of the ghetto. You can’t carry one from here to the train station. You’d be picked up before you got there. But you have to have one when you get there. Someone will get it to the station left-luggage before tomorrow night. I’ll get you the claim check. Any questions?” Rita shook her head. “For God’s sake don’t do anything stupid in the next twenty-four hours.” Lydia walked out of the shed, leaving Rita alone.
What to pack? She had almost nothing. Well, then, some underclothes and something to sleep in, a toothbrush that had not seen paste or powder in six months, a scarf that might once have been brightly colored silk, and the dress in which she’d had her picture taken. There were only a few other things she would not part with: the contents of the stuffed dog and Freddy’s two fat volumes in German. For a second time, she ripped the stitches out of the toy, pulled out its contents, and mindlessly sewed it up again, while she thought about what to do with the two small sacks. She sewed the six morphine bottles, spaced evenly, around the hem of her coat, dropped the syringe’s metal plunger and needle among a nest of sewing needles in her kit, and put the glass tubes in a now-empty jewelry case. Would she ever own any jewelry again? She felt her earlobes. The piercing had healed over. Oh well. Then she sewed the gold coins into the hem of the dress she would wear. Rita harbored no illusions about these hiding places. They wouldn’t survive scrutiny. Then she finished packing, snapped the clasps on the valise, and belted it. Creeping down the stairs in the dark, she went out the back and sat in the outhouse until her watch read ten thirty. How had she managed to keep this watch? Then she remembered: she had been about to trade it for food when she began working and eating at the factory.
The transfer was wordless. All she saw was a man’s hand reach for the bag through a slat in the fence she had shifted. Then she heard a match lighting a cigarette and footfalls moving away. Oh, for a smoke.
Morning came. No Erich; no one in the room at all. The gauntlet at the gate. Far fewer passing through than before. So few that each pass could be checked and each worker eyed by the German sentry. No Jupo Ordnungsdienst strutting in their shadows. The slog through the streets, looking up and down at normal people coming and going. Will I ever be a free person, one of them again? No. Then she realized, I’ll be one of them tomorrow. Keep your head down, no eye contact with anyone.
Another worker at the Fabrik caught up with her. “Why did they send Erich down yesterday?” She shrugged. He made the obvious observations: “Perfectly fit. Probably top of the list. I don’t understand it.” Again Rita made no answer. He walked on past her.
The day crept along with glacial slowness. Rita surreptitiously watched both the main doors and Lydia’s office-loft all day. There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. At least one German came through the main gate, pushed his way onto the loading dock, and simply took a Wehrmacht greatcoat from a consignment. With soldiers being earmarked for Eastern Front duty every day, this was not unusual. The coat had to be replaced, and they took the one Rita was finishing. At quitting time, six forty-five, Rita made herself the last to leave. As she turned out of the building to the main gate, a hand reached out and pulled her back in, meanwhile shutting the door. It was Lydia, who now led her out a side door and across the path to the house where Stefan and she had been entertained to tea three months before. Nothing was said till they were inside.
“Here.” Lydia handed her a Polish government identity card, complete with the passport photo Rita had given Erich a week before, neatly over-marked by the edge of a government rubber stamp. The second item was a birth certificate, and the third was a paper written in Ukrainian Cyrillic. Finally, there was a receipt from the railway left-luggage depot.
“We’ll need to put two fingerprints on the identity card.” She took Rita’s right hand and moved it over an inkpad on her desk, then deftly pressed two fingers on the space in the inkpad. “Wash your hands well. You can’t afford to smudge these documents. And it’s a giveaway if your fingers are inspected tonight.” She pointed to a small washbasin on a sideboard.
As Rita dried her hands, Lydia continued, “The Cyrillic document is your baptismal certificate. You are now Margarita Trushenko, Ukrainian Catholic with a Volks-Deutsche mother. That should help a little. Here is a catechism pamphlet from the local church. Memorize it.” Lydia handed her a little booklet. Rita put it in her coat pocket. “Most important, memorize every detail on the identity card—your birthday, your parents’ names, where you were born, where and when they were born. Everything, Rita. You’re Margarita Trushenko now. That fourth piece of paper is the receipt for your bag at the left-luggage. Pick it up at the station. Here is a ticket to Lemberg, Panna—Miss Trushenko—one hundred zloty and some reichsmarks.”
Rita looked confused. She repeated, “Lemberg?”
“The Germans have changed Lvov’s name.” Lydia now rose from the desk and said, “Margarita”—Rita’s new name—“come into the kitchen and have a little supper. Your train doesn’t leave till nine o’clock.” Rita smiled at Lydia’s effort to instill the new identity. “Any questions?”
“Yes. Why are you doing this? Do you know anything about Erich?”
Lydia began warming a saucepan. “You know Erich was a dear friend of my brother’s.” There was no innuendo in her voice. “So he was close to my family for many years. He asked me to help get you these papers, and I couldn’t refuse him.”
Rita interrupted. “Why did he do that for me? Why did he let himself be sent to . . .” She was unable to finish her sentence or even her thought.
“Well, he loved you . . . like a sister, he told me. And he felt that the fate of your child was his doing, his responsibility, because he pushed you so hard to give Stefan up.”
“But he was right to force me to do it. And besides, we can’t be sure Stefan isn’t still alive somewhere.” It was the first time she had given voice to the thought.
Lydia was surprised. “But the courier was taken by the Gestapo.”
“I had a letter from my father, written weeks after she was supposed to have delivered Stefan. It was a farewell letter smuggled out on the transit to Belzec.” She reflected for a moment. “There was no mention of Stefan in it at all. Not a word. Surely my father would have said something if he were with them.”
“So, a reason to hope. As to why Erich didn’t try to save himself—he is trying. But in a different way. Erich was sure that the rest of the ghetto would be cleared in the next few weeks. The extermination camp at Belzec is up and running at full capacity. This part of the Generalgouvernement has to be Judenrein by the end of ’42. He knew he didn’t have a chance with German papers, his looks . . . well, you know.” She was reticent about the obvious. “So, he spent the last few days making a strong bolt-cutter he could hide on his body. His idea was to cut his way through the barbed wire on the feeder hatch of the cattle car or break the hasp on a wagon door, jump, and take as many others with him as he could. Then make for the Pripet Marshes on the old Soviet border and join the partisans.”
She set out a dish before Rita, and put another one on a tray. “Now, if there are no more questions, I am going to take some soup to my mother. Have some supper; study your new identity. You know where the station is. Let yourself out the front door and turn off the light. Godspeed . . . Margarita.” With a kiss that surprised Rita, she was moving up the stairs.
The German soldier checking documents at the platform barrier actually said Danke w
hen she handed him the Ausweis, and again Danke after she had opened her case for inspection. If you knew the truth, you’d sooner shoot me down than be korrekt, she thought. There was a vacuum of fear sucking at her intestines, giving her the sort of cramps she had lived with through the first weeks of the occupation. It was starting again—the dread, the feeling someone was playing Russian roulette with your life. She knew it would be constant again for days or weeks. She decided to sit as near to the soldier on the quay as possible. A soldier offered protection. Rita—or rather Margarita Trushenko, Volks-Deutsche—needed it, waiting for the Lemberg train in a vast and empty train station at night. She took out her catechism booklet and tried to study it. Perhaps memories of gymnasium and the Dominican sisters would distract her from the raging angst.
At 20:48 the express came in—from Lemberg, Warsaw, Dresden, Berlin—full of officers and men on their way to join the Wehrmacht divisions in the Donbas, still cutting through whole Soviet army groups. Fixed on her catechism, Rita did not notice the two Germans in civilian dress descending from the first-class carriage.
The German sentry did. He came to completely respectful attention as he examined their papers: one was an Oberst—a captain. The other was Friedrich von Richter, major general, SS-RSHA—Reich Security Main Headquarters—evidently traveling out of uniform. Of course, neither the sentry nor anyone else in Karpatyn that night could know that Richter wasn’t SS at all, but Abwehr, military intelligence and an officer in the first section, responsible for code security.
“Herr Generalmajor,” said the sentry, “there is no car awaiting you here.”
“We were not expected. Get on the telephone to Leideritz. Tell him to send a car immediately.” Evidently Leideritz wasn’t expecting to see him, but Richter was expecting to see Leideritz. That was clear to the sentry at the station.
Twenty-five minutes later, Peter Leideritz was standing to attention in first-class uniform as Richter and his adjutant strode into his building and led the way to his office. How, wondered Leideritz, does this officer know where my office is? He’s never been here before.
Richter sat down, at Leideritz’s desk, no less. His adjutant stood behind. He did not invite Leideritz to sit. “We are looking for someone, a Jew in your jurisdiction. Name of Klein, Erich Klein.”
“May I ask why, Generalmajor?”
“Of course not.” Richter glared. “Just tell me where he is. In the ghetto, on a work detail, where?”
Leideritz turned and called out to the clerks, who had all by this time assembled in the outer office. “Schmitz, bring the registers of workers with authorizations.” He held out his hand. It was only a matter of seconds before they were delivered. He began to work through the list, glad to see it had already been alphabetized. “Joachim, Junkers, Kalfuss . . . Klepfiz . . .” He looked again. “Sorry, Generalmajor, no Klein.”
Richter glared for a moment, then was all business again. “Account for him if he is not here. Where is he? Did you let him escape?”
Turning again to the outer office, Leideritz shouted, “Schmitz, list of Jews transported to Belzec.” The list was in his hands only a moment after he had demanded it. It was a massive sheaf of onionskin sheets, organized by dates. Leideritz began from the most recent transport, the one from which he knew there had been escapes. Running his finger down the list, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, here it is. He was sent to Belzec four days ago. Probably already dead.” Could this SS major general discover the truth—that he might have been among those who escaped from one of the cattle wagons? Not unless he cross-checked lists at Belzec. Leideritz would have to hope that there was no need or time for such formalities before marching Jews to the gas chambers.
Richter broke through his calculations. “Close the door. Sit down, Untersturmführer.”
Leideritz did so, visibly relieved.
“So, let me tell you why this is important. We are pursuing an intelligence matter and need to be certain that this Klein did not have classified information.” How much more to say, Richter considered—that he was a mathematician before the war in Warsaw? No, too close to cryptography. Don’t make him that important. Richter continued, “He may have seen scientific papers about industrial processes that are now secret.” It seemed enough to satisfy this Leideritz. It wouldn’t do to make someone else more curious than necessary.
“Well, he’s dead now. Case closed, jawohl?”
“Not quite.” Richter cleared his throat. “Even if he’s dead, we’ll need to know about people he might have communicated with, lived with, worked with, who are still alive.”
Another chance for Leideritz to show his efficiency and initiative. He rose, opened the door, and for the fourth time shouted, “Schmitz, Jewish quarter housing assignments and work assignments, sofort—immediately."
Within a few minutes, smiling broadly, Leideritz had what the Generalmajor wanted. “So . . . Erich Klein, work assignment, Terakowski Textile Fabrik, residence assignment . . . ghetto A, housed with Kaltenbrunner, deceased; Stefan Guildenstern, infant, missing, presumed deceased; Rita Guildenstern, nee Feuerstahl.” He switched back to the work lists. “She works at Terakowski Fabrik. So, Generalmajor, only one person to track down.”
“Bring her in, immediately.”
Leideritz clicked his heels. “Zur befehl, Generalmajor.”
The next morning Generalmajor Friedrich von Richter left for Abwehr headquarters in Berlin. He didn’t have this Rita Guildenstern woman to interrogate. But he had enough information to worry about her, and more than enough, he thought, to find her. It was just a matter of sending out a description to every police station in the country. Something would turn up.
PART III
MEANWHILE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It had been a hard war for Gil, six months of discomfort and even some danger. But now, in the spring of 1942, with any luck, it was over.
The worst moment had been a dive-bomber attack on the rail line somewhere near Uman during the thousand-kilometer retreat to Dnepropetrovsk. He’d been in the Red Army less than a month, assigned at Lvov to a mobile field hospital. At first he stumbled from one duty to another, with no real supervision, amid the chaos of a withdrawal in which the order of the day seemed to be sauve qui peut—every man for himself. Somehow the field hospital had been assigned to the headquarters of the 15th Rifle Corps of the Fifth Army. That got it a locomotive and six passenger cars, which were immediately painted—top and sides—with large red crosses. The train had been ordered east from Kiev a few days before the whole southern group of armies, 650,000 men, had been surrounded.
As it stood in a marshaling yard waiting to water and recoal, air-raid warning sirens began to shriek. Then Gil heard a throbbing, increasingly loud whine. Looking out the large window of his carriage, he could see the gull wings of a Junkers 87 Stuka. A bomb was just beginning slowly to move from between its talon-like undercarriage. Freed from the weight, the plane lurched back upward and out of the window frame. He knew little of military aviation, but the Stuka was a type he recognized from newspaper photos in Spain. The German Condor Legion had flown them for Franco. The shriek, the anger of flames spitting from its radiators, the menace in its very shape, a predatory mechanical bird of prey, had made it an icon on both sides of the Civil War. But he had managed to avoid seeing one on the wing before now.
Gil rushed down the corridor, jumped off the carriage onto the gravel roadbed, and scurried under the train’s wheels for protection. From beneath the carriage, he saw an orderly ten meters away raise his head out of a slit trench, urgently imploring Gil to crawl over and slide in, along with the others from the train. Frozen in the sudden silence, Gil could not move. Instead he stood, waiting for the next group of four Stukas to go into their dive. When the second set of dive-bombers had finished, Gil was temporarily deaf and trembling uncontrollably, but otherwise unhurt.
The last carriage of the train had been derailed by the closest of the blasts. Fortunately, it co
uld be abandoned, since the commander of the field hospital was not responsible for rolling stock. Soldiers and officers stood around as the trainmen decoupled the damaged car. Another medical corps officer came up beside Gil. “Well, Captain Romero, rather brave of you to stay with the train.” He was shouting over temporary deafness. “Seen it all before, I suppose . . . in Spain?”
“What do you mean?” he shouted.
“They say you were with the Republicans in the Civil War. The orderlies thought you were a damn fool staying with the train when everyone knew it was the target. But the chief said you knew what you were doing. Those dive-bombers frighten, but he figured you knew they aren’t very accurate.”
Gil would pocket the compliment, but inwardly he was mortified at his own stupidity. Inexperience could masquerade as bravura once too often. He had to find a way out of the field hospital service, well away from the front.
After five months of retreat, the unit had detrained east of Voronezh, setting up an evacuation hospital. Till that point they had been moving back too fast ever to see any real casualties, except for a brief period after they passed through Dnepropetrovsk. One night Gil had duty with triaged patients for whom nothing further, and in many cases nothing at all, could be done. It was said that in the Wehrmacht, frontline medical orderlies and even evacuation medical staff carried small caliber pistols to put such cases out of their misery. It seemed to Gil to be a good idea.
The dying man beside him was still in the remnants of a uniform, with the red tabs of an NKVD captain. So, here was a political commissar, a surprise to Gil since they were rarely to be found in harm’s way. This one had the stomach viscera of someone who had taken enough shrapnel to destroy a company. He was coming out of a morphine-induced sleep, and Gil began to wonder if there was any more available. Catching sight of his white coat, the captain asked, “Am I going to die, comrade?”
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