Death Sentences

by Otto Penzler

  That a former member of the Waffen-SS was manning the teletype that day might not have been so terrible a thing had Max Baumgarten been a little more like his lover Daniel. The reserved and cautious Daniel would never give such a note to the teletype operator to send. He would have done it himself, but Max, in spite of his work in army intelligence, often did careless things. Even still, few, maybe no other former SS man, would have understood the implications of the messages sent between Max Baumgarten and Karl Olson.

  It was Max’s misfortune, however, that Corporal Ernst Flesch had served for a short time at Birkenau under a certain Oberleutnant Kleinmann, an officer who had treated him well. It was Flesch who, in the wake of Kleinmann’s murder, had driven the railroad spikes into the cross through the wrists and ankles of Isaac Becker. Flesch ripped the message out of the machine, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into the trash.

  The rest was almost as easy as that: Getting Baumgarten’s address, gaining entrance by saying he had an important message from New York, garroting the Jew with a length of piano wire held tightly between his gloved hands. Only when another man stepped out of the lavatory, wet from a shower, did things get a little complicated, but not so much that Flesch couldn’t handle it. The man almost seemed more embarrassed by his nudity in front of a stranger than shocked by Baumgarten’s lifeless body on the floor before him. By the time the nude man regained his wits, it was too late. Flesch slammed the heel of his gloved right palm into the base of the nude man’s nose, breaking it. Daniel reeled blindly, falling to the floor. Flesch grabbed his old Walther, put a pillow around the pistol, held the pillow to the man’s face, and squeezed the trigger. Flesch held his breath, waiting to see if any of the neighbors would react. None did. There were no shouts to call the police, no shrieks, no running feet in the hallway, no banging at the flat door. Ernst Flesch exhaled and calmly set about tossing the apartment, even checking the undersides of all the drawers and emptying out all the food canisters. He repeated this same process later that evening at Daniel Epstein’s flat, but neither search produced the package.

  Wantagh, Long Island, New York, 1952

  As is often the case, an action taken with one purpose in mind leads to its exact opposite. And so it was with Ernst Flesch’s handiwork. The double homicide got big headlines in the West Berlin papers, even bigger ones and more play in the London and New York papers. Of course, the nature of the relationship between Max Baumgarten and Daniel Epstein was only alluded to and then obliquely, but it didn’t take a genius to read between the lines. Yet the story had legs—long, powerful legs thanks to Karl Olson and the mood of the times. His story about the possible connection between The Book of Ghosts and the double homicide in West Berlin got picked up by every newspaper from New York to Yorkshire, from Pekin, Illinois, to Peking, China. Anyone who hadn’t heard of Isaac Becker, Jacob Weisen, and the book knew about it now.

  After his time in Birkenau, this period of Weisen’s life was by far the worst. Even after the initial flurry of activity in the wake of Karl Olson’s story, Jacob had no peace. With the Cold War in bloom, the Rosenberg executions pending, and Red paranoia spreading like the common cold, the story of The Book of Ghosts took a bizarre twist. Seemingly overnight, the legend went from something heroic and life affirming to something vaguely evil and suspect. There were all sorts of theories about how Isaac Becker was really a Soviet spy and that the book was full of coded secrets. That when they liberated all the Auschwitz camps, the Russians had enlisted Weisen as a spy. That the book was a lie perpetrated by the Russians to make Americans doubt the sincerity of their new allies, the West Germans. None of it made a lick of sense or held up under any kind of scrutiny, but what did that matter in 1952?

  The worst part for Weisen was when the investigator from the House Un-American Activities Committee showed up at his house to interview him and his wife. It was bad enough that this preppy asshole came into his home, asking questions not so different than a Gestapo or KGB interrogator might have asked, but what really infuriated Jacob was that this prig hounded Ava as well.

  “Levinsky, that’s your maiden name, is it not, Mrs. Weisen?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re the daughter of Saul Levinsky, the lawyer who represents the grocery workers union. Is that correct?

  “Yes and yes.”

  “Were you aware that the head of the union is alleged to of have ties to the New York Socialist Workers Committee?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think your father is aware of these allegations?”

  Ava was cool. “You’d have to ask my father, I suppose.”

  And so it went. Jacob kept his answers short and nearly bit through his tongue in frustration because, in spite of his anger, the investigator’s unfounded insinuations and thinly veiled anti-Semitism, Jacob knew he had been the one to bring this down on their heads. He, and he alone, was responsible. Nothing ever came of the allegations, but rumors and whispers were enough to ruin people in those days, especially Jews who spoke with foreign accents. After all, who needs the truth when you’ve got demagoguery on a grand scale?

  Jacob and Ava Weisen were luckier than most in that they weren’t ruined. In fact, Olson’s story did far more damage than HUAC ever could. Now that the legend of The Book of Ghosts was out there for the world to know and the pictures Max Baumgarten had snapped of the tattered package were in wide circulation, Jacob had very little peace. Jewish groups raised funds to hire investigators to look for it. The Federal Republic of Germany, as an act of atonement and as a gesture to the people of Israel, had agents on its trail. It was rumored that the Israeli government had assigned some Mossad agents from the Nazi hunter squads to search for the book. For a moment there, it seemed that every adventurer, freelance reporter, and foreign government on the planet was out searching for the damned thing. And of course, they all wanted to interview Jacob Weisen. Worse still were the constant rumors of the book’s whereabouts. The Book of Ghosts had been transformed from a lie into a combination of the Holy Grail and the Maltese Falcon. With every report, every rumor, came a knock on Weisen’s front door or a ring of his phone.

  Yes, there were whole months, years sometimes, when the activity would slow to a trickle and Jacob and Ava could enjoy their children and, eventually, their grandchildren. The damned book, however, was never completely out of their lives and each time an escaped Nazi was captured—the year Eichmann went on trial was hell—or a Holocaust-related movie like The Pawnbroker, Schindler’s List, Shoah, Marathon Man, The Odessa File, The Boys From Brazil or even The Producers was released, Jacob was forced back into the hell of his own making. The Internet only made things worse. By then, at least, he had retired and they’d moved down to Boynton Beach. After Ava passed in 2002, Jacob Weisen had a brief period where he was practically Zen about the whole affair. He could not undo things. What was done was done, but it wasn’t done, not by a long shot.

  Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany, 2009

  At first they assumed Al Qaeda was responsible for the bomb blast because the center of the powerful explosion was just meters away from a subway entrance. It was only the next day, after the rescue teams had pulled the survivors from the ruins of the old building and pieces of the device were collected that it was determined the blast was actually a long time in the making. The five-hundred-pound bomb had likely been dropped from the belly of a B-17 or B-24, been paved over, and laid dormant beneath the sidewalk for more than six decades. When the demolition and cleanup crews came to sort through the rubble, the fuse was lit to another type of dormant bomb. For in the piles of bricks, twisted metal, splintered wood, and plaster dust was a package wrapped in the tatters of concentration camp pajamas. In the report issued after a court-ordered investigation, a tentative link was established between The Book of Ghosts, Bronka Kaczmarek, and Daniel Epstein, who was murdered shortly after Kaczmarek’s own death. During an interview, the lead investigator said he was certain that the destroyed building had contained a flat t
hat had once been rented by Daniel Epstein and Max Baumgarten. His best guess was that the book had been hidden beneath a floor board or behind a closet wall, but he had no way of knowing for certain. What was known for sure was that none of the dozens of people who had rented the flat since had ever stumbled onto the package.

  Manhattan, New York City, 2011

  They had arrived, finally, and so had judgment day. Quinby’s Auction House had someone waiting at the curb to help Jacob Weisen into the building, but the stooped, white-haired man rejected the offer with a curt snap of his head and a grunt.

  “Zaydeh, please be polite,” Leah chided.

  “Forgive an old man,” he said, admiring the willowy blonde who had been sent to see to him.

  “Of course, Mr. Weisen. Please, if you will follow me.”

  And as the blonde held the door for them, another Quinby’s employee went to park their car.

  This wouldn’t be the first time Jacob would see the package since it was unearthed in Berlin two years ago. No, he had been flown into Berlin to authenticate it and, he supposed, he could have ended his eternal nightmare by telling yet another lie. All he had needed to say was, “It’s a fake. A good one, but a fake.”

  He had planned to say it, meant to say it right up until he said, “That’s the package I put in the ash wagon in 1944.” He was too near death, too accustomed to the chaos he had made of his life, to lie about it now. Besides, like everyone else, he was curious to see what that idiot Isaac Becker had sacrificed his life for all those years ago. He recognized the silhouette of the star immediately and his heart raced at the sight of it. And though it had been sixty-five years since it had been put it in the cart, he swore the thing still smelled like ashes.

  Preservationists, historians, museum curators, religious leaders, and survivors disagreed about how to handle the find. Some argued the package should be carefully opened, with each of the component parts—the garment wrapping, the rubber sheeting, and the book itself—sent to undergo further analysis and preservation. Some argued that to divide the package up would be to destroy its value and historical significance. Still others claimed that to do anything at all to the package would ruin its spiritual nature. But the German government held that the decision was not rightly theirs to make. An intensive search was made to find the closest living blood relative of Isaac Becker. After nearly a year, a second cousin of Becker’s, a Hyman Jablonsky, who, at twelve was sent with his family to Treblinka and survived, was found living in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. Although he had never met his cousin Isaac and had never heard the legend of The Book of Ghosts, it was determined that he was the book’s rightful owner.

  Jablonsky had a similar nature to his cousin. A man of humble means, Jablonsky needed to profit from the sale of the package, but he also understood its multi-layered significance. So it was arranged that any party to the bidding had to agree in advance of the auction to a strict set of stipulations concerning the future handling of the package. Small swaths of the wrapping, rubber sheeting and a page from the book itself had to be donated to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., to the Auschwitz Museum in Poland, and to the German Holocaust Memorial for permanent display and for six months each year, the package should be on display at museums and memorials around the world. It was further stipulated that upon the new owner’s death that The Book of Ghosts would be sold, at a prearranged figure, to Yad Vashem.

  The main room of Quinby’s was abuzz. The media were there in force as were diplomats from the United States, Israel, Germany, and Poland. Curators from the Holocaust memorials and museums were there too. All the bidders were present as well. In order to prevent any possible sale to Holocaust deniers, hate groups, or other types who might be motivated to break the terms of the sale and destroy the package, phone bidding was disallowed. A specially designed air-tight glove box—not dissimilar to the kind used when handling plutonium—with the package inside its Plexiglas walls, was on display. It had been agreed that the package should be unwrapped immediately following the sale. Expert linguists were on hand to read from the book. Yet in this room full of statesmen and dignitaries, the wealthy and the wise, it was Jacob Weisen’s entrance that caused the greatest stir. First one person applauded, then another, and another, and another still, until everyone was on their feet and the room rang with applause. The old man was overcome, but only he understood why. He excused himself for a minute and went into the men’s room.

  He ran cold water into the sink basin, dipped his face into it, and when he stood up he saw his younger self looking back at him from the mirror. Isaac Becker—black holes where his eyes had been, blood pouring from his stigmata—was standing over his right shoulder.

  “Yes, Becker,” Jacob spoke into the mirror, nodding his head, “I know what must be done.”

  With that he reached into his pocket. When he was done drinking water out of his cupped hands, Jacob returned to the main room. There he took his seat in between the glove box and Leah. The bidding, which started at two million dollars, took much less time than he expected. When the price was at five million, Jeffrey Meyer, who ran several hedge funds and who personally owned large blocks of stock in many of the world’s largest companies, went all in and indicated he was willing to go to twelve million. When the other bidders balked, the package went to him.

  “Sold!” proclaimed the auctioneer, striking her gavel on the rostrum.

  Jacob, on increasingly unsteady legs, stood for pictures next to Meyer and the glovebox and then sat down. The moment he had dreaded for over sixty years was here. An eerie hush fell over the crowded room as the preservationist stepped forward and slid her hands into the gloves. These gloves were rather more soft and supple than the type used to handle hazardous materials. With fine, delicate instruments already in the box, the preservationist carefully untied the knot in the long shred of pajamas used to bind the package together. Next she removed the rubber sheeting to expose the book that Isaac Becker thought so precious he had been willing to sacrifice himself. The crowd literally gasped. Through heavy-lidded eyes, Jacob Weisen recognized it immediately. A little frayed at the edges, a little worse for wear, perhaps, but the book indeed. That the book was in there was no surprise, of course. The package had been x-rayed and scanned in Germany long before things had come to this. The scans were so sensitive that they even detected fragments of Becker’s writing, but nothing comprehensible.

  Ever so carefully, the preservationist pulled back the cover and the linguists stepped forward as the faded writing on the first page was exposed. The writing was projected onto a large screen behind the rostrum and on TV monitors for the audience.

  “Hungarian, definitely Hungarian,” Jacob Weisen heard someone say as he began slipping away. His eyes fluttered as the vial of pills he’d swallowed in the men’s room was now taking full hold of him. Death was no more than a few heartbeats away.

  “What does it say?” a media type cried out.

  “The Ghost Book,” said the linguist.

  Jacob Weisen shook his head at the irony of it all. So, it wasn’t a book of poetry or of recipes or colorful Hungarian curse words. He not sure how to feel about the truth buried in his sixty plus years of lies. He wouldn’t have time to figure it out. Jacob Weisen pitched forward, already dead. Some there claimed he was smiling.

  The End

  V

  The Final Testament

  Peter Blauner

  THE DOCTOR’S HANDS were trembling as he took the clutching end of the clothes-pin and put it in his mouth. On some days, there was no other way to negotiate past the pain that caused his jaws to lock up. Carefully, he pushed the head of the pin past his lips, up to his gums, and then tried to wedge it between his clenched teeth.

  Fighting back tears, he began to bargain. A dull, persistent throb he could accept if he could stay off the morphine and maintain a clear mind. The occasional hot skewer up through the cheekbone could be borne, even as h
is eyes blurred with tears. What he quietly feared was overwhelming, incapacitating anguish that would render him finally useless and put the work of his life at a permanent end.

  It was autumn of 1938 and the news on the radio was not good. The Germans had crossed the border into Austria in March, meeting no resistance. He had tried to tell himself that this could be lived with. But then had come the introduction of the racial laws and the decrees that all Jewish assets were assumed to be improperly acquired and therefore subject to confiscation without advance notice. When they burned his books in the street, he joked about the progress of civilization. “In the Middle Ages, they would have burned me.”

  But then Nazis had shown up at the offices of the publishing company he owned, aiming a gun at his son and confiscating the financial ledgers. Soon after, the Gestapo had come to his home in Vienna without an appointment, leaving Berggasse 19 with six thousand schillings in cash. After that, he had no choice but to call upon favors from foreign friends in high places so that he could find another country that would accept him and the rest of the family should they manage, by some miracle, to be able to flee Austria with a few remaining assets.

  Now he was in London and Hitler’s troops had overrun Poland. On the radio, the Fuhrer was demanding the Czechs leave the Sudetenland. Back in Austria, brownshirts were swinging clubs and breaking windows of stores owned by Jews. The doctor’s relatives who could not get out were being threatened, robbed and beaten on the street almost every week. Such things could not be controlled or reliably contained anymore. At the same time, the cancer in his own body was spreading. He’d recently lost much of his upper palate and right cheek to radical maxiofacial surgery. To block off the space left open between his mouth and the nasal cavity, he’d been forced to wear a large dental prosthesis he called “the monster,” which caused constant irritation and made it difficult for him to talk. His speech, never euphonious, had become labored, nasal, and unpleasant even to his own ears.