The Nazi Hunter

by Alan Elsner

  “He wants your job.”

  “I can't believe it.”

  “Believe it. It's human nature, and it's been going on forever. Just read the Book of Kings about the struggle for power after the death of King David.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Mark?”

  “Never mind.”

  “That little pissant wants my job?” He really couldn't comprehend it.

  “He's a big Republican, and he thinks this may be his opportunity.”

  “Well, fuck him! He can kiss my toches. And fuck Doneghan as well. They can both kiss my ass.” He turned on his heel and strode into the building.

  Lynn and I had agreed to cook dinner together at my apartment that night. I picked her up at Metro Center. She greeted me with a peck on the cheek that turned into a series of pecks—not all of them on the cheek. Snowflakes on her hair melted into little droplets that shone like diamonds. God, she was beautiful….

  “Now that we have a lead on Delatrucha's real identity, we can look for his Nazi Party file. That may tell us a lot,” I said, snapping back to business.

  As we got out of the car, I looked carefully in both directions. As usual, nothing suspicious. The mailbox was stuffed with a fresh crop of hate mail. “Have you been receiving any threatening mail or phone calls lately?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “That's a relief. I've been getting more than usual. Some neo-Nazi group mentioned Eric and me by name in their newsletter, and that unleashed a flood. I even had to unplug my phone for a day. The FBI and the police think it's nothing to worry about. And I have my trusty pepper spray,” I told her.

  “I wouldn't put my trust in pepper spray. I'd want something stronger.”

  We went up to the apartment, and suddenly we were all over each other. My nerve endings stood at attention. Her cold hands were under my shirt, raising goose bumps on my skin; I kissed her neck, her earlobes. My hand found her breasts, not listening to that “still, small voice” asking if this was the right thing to do.

  And then the phone rang. “Ignore it,” I panted between kisses.

  “It may be important,” she gasped.

  “Probably just another neo-Nazi.”

  “Answer it.” She slithered out of my grasp, picked up the receiver, and handed it to me.

  “Mr. Cain?” A female voice, shrill, agitated, vaguely familiar.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “It's Susan Scott.”

  “How did you get my number?”

  “You're in the book.” Not for much longer, I thought.

  “What's wrong?” I gestured to Lynn to pick up the extension to listen in.

  “I don't know what's going on. I'm afraid,” Susan said.

  “What happened?”

  “I think someone was following me today. I keep catching glimpses of some man.” Her voice sounded rattled, almost hysterical.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “No, I'm not.” I knew the feeling. It wasn't pleasant.

  “Ms. Scott, please calm down. You need to calm down.”

  “Okay, I'll try,” she whispered.

  “What does he look like, this person you're seeing?”

  “A man dressed in a black coat, not too tall, not too short. Whenever I look around, he disappears. I'm not even sure my mind isn't playing games with me.”

  “Ms. Scott—Susan—how many people know you're here in town?” I asked her.

  “I don't know. It's not a secret. I was doing business, meeting clients.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “The Four Seasons in Georgetown.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “I am right now.”

  “Call the police. I'll give you the name and number of a detective.” I dug through my notes for Novak's number. “Call her, explain who you are and what you saw.”

  “Can you come here? There are things I need to tell you. I can't keep it all bottled up any longer.”

  “What things?”

  “About Sophie Reiner. You were right. She came to see me. I feel so terrible. Poor woman.”

  “What did she say? Did she show you the documents?”

  “She said lots of things, but I didn't believe her. What if she's dead because of me? I wouldn't listen to her. I sent her away.” She sniffled quietly over the phone.

  “Don't blame yourself.”

  “If you knew what she told me, you wouldn't say that.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “I can't, I just can't. Not tonight, over the phone.” She let out a sob.

  I didn't want to push her too hard. “I'll tell you what; it's late, and we're both tired. Let's meet tomorrow morning, eight o'clock, in your lobby,” I said. “We can have breakfast.”

  “Mr. Cain, do you know why this is happening?”

  “I don't. But I think it all revolves around Sophie. She stirred something up and paid for it with her life.”

  “Mr. Cain, Mark—can I call you Mark?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mark, you have to help me. I don't feel safe on my own. Couldn't you come here and spend the night with me?” Lynn shook her head vigorously. She needn't have bothered, I had no intention of going.

  “Don't open the door to anyone, and you'll be perfectly safe.”

  “Okay.”

  “I'll see you tomorrow morning.”

  She hung up.

  Lynn came back and put her arms around me. “Do you have any other secret admirers I should know about?”

  “She's scared,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “Lynn, are you jealous?”

  “Of her? No way. I just don't trust her. Remember, I did research on her. She's a practiced liar. Remember that book about her boyfriend.”

  “I've dealt with a lot of lies in my time. I think I can tell the difference.”

  “Can you?”

  I leaned forward to kiss her again, to pick up where we left off, but the mood was broken. We disengaged sheepishly. She stroked my cheek and smiled. “Don't worry, Mark. It's okay.”

  “It's not okay. We need time together without other stuff getting in the way. I don't want to be sharing you with the Delatrucha case.”

  “What about that weekend you promised me in West Virginia?”

  I had forgotten about that. “How about this weekend? It's beautiful out there right now with the snow. We could leave on Friday, get there before Shabbat. I need to check up on the old man anyway. I haven't seen him for months.”

  “That'd be great,” she said. “Let's do it.”

  “I'll call my dad and tell him to expect us.”

  Lynn called a taxi. “Go to bed,” she said as she left. “And don't let that woman sweet-talk you too much tomorrow.”

  12

  I heard of one incident in which a Jew threw a six-year-old child at an SS man as a distraction while other Jews stormed the guards, strangling one ethnic German and one SS man before they were subdued.

  This happened on the way to the gas chamber.

  —TESTIMONY OF TADEUSZ MISIEWICZ

  “Shit!” I swore under my breath, jumping out of bed and groping for some clothes. It was already seven thirty in the morning. I must have forgotten to set the alarm on this of all days. This never happened to me. I quickly said Modeh Ani, skipped shaving, struggled into my suit, and rushed out the door. Washington traffic was hopelessly snarled, and it was almost 8:20 by the time I reached the Four Seasons. Susan wasn't in the lobby. I waited for a few minutes, then called her room. No answer.

  “She checked out,” the desk clerk told me. “Are you Mr. Cain? She left you this.” He handed me an envelope. Ripping it open, I found a single sheet written in German, and a short note in English:

  Mr. Cain —

  Please forgive me. I was up all night thinking about this. I can't stay here any longer. I want no part of this. I'm going home. Sophie gave me this. I hope it means something to you. I have nothing else to sa
y. Please leave me and my mother alone. She doesn't know anything.

  Sincerely,

  Susan Scott

  The sheet of paper was written in German in a small, crabbed hand. It was a photocopy. The date caught my breath—July 1, 1942—then the first few words, “I think of her day and night.” There were a few more lines of text. I sat down in an armchair and quickly scanned them, reaching for my legal pad to write down the translation.

  July 1, 1942.

  I think of her night and day. I know it's wrong. I know in some sense she is not fully human, but who of us in this place is? And yet her form is human and lovely, and I am but a man. I will be strong. This is a test of my will, and I shall not fail it.

  I read it twice, making sure I had it correct. It sounded like part of a journal. If so, the date meant this entry had been written during the height of the Holocaust. Was this one of the documents Sophie Reiner wanted to give me? And who was this mysterious woman? Was she connected to Sophie? Did Sophie Reiner have in her possession an entire journal written at Belzec? The historical importance of such a document was unthinkable. This fragment raised more questions than it answered.

  At the office, a message from George asked me to call immediately. He was in his hotel room, bubbling with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

  “I found it!” he said.

  “Found what?”

  “Franz Beck's file.”

  “So he was a Nazi.”

  “Not just any old Nazi. He was an SS officer.”

  “Tell me exactly what you found,” I said. “No, wait, I'm going to conference Janet in on this.” I dialed her in. “Tell us what you found.”

  “According to the file, Beck was born in 1918 in Hesse. He signed up with the Nazi Party in 1937 and joined the SS in 1939.”

  “That makes him what, seventy-six?”

  “About the same age as Delatrucha,” George said.

  “What else? Does it say anything about what he did?” Janet asked.

  “Sent to Poland in 1941. After that, the information becomes sketchy. But get this—he won the Iron Cross First Class in 1943.”

  “What for?”

  “For duties performed in Operation Reinhard,” George said flatly.

  My heart was racing. The telephone felt hot in my hands.

  “What did he do in Reinhard? Does it say?” I asked in a hushed voice.

  “It doesn't.”

  “Not surprising,” Janet interposed. “Reinhard was conducted in total secrecy. It was kept within a very tight group.”

  “Still, it could mean we're dealing with something really big,” I said.

  “If we can prove Beck is Delatrucha, it's huge. Just about everyone connected to Reinhard was up to his neck in mass murder,” Janet replied.

  Reinhard was the Nazi code name for the operation launched at the beginning of 1942 to murder all the Jews of Poland within a year. A small group of SS was selected to carry it out, helped by Ukrainian volunteers. The Nazis built extermination camps at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka where, in the space of eighteen months, they murdered almost two million Polish Jews, a crime unparalleled in human history. By the end of 1942, the Nazis were able to declare vast tracts of Poland Judenrein—free of Jews. Very few of those who served in Reinhard were ever brought to justice. Some died later in the war. Most just melted away. A handful were tried in Germany in the 1960s and received light sentences. I even remembered reading some of the sickening trial transcripts several years before. If Delatrucha really was Franz Beck, he had enjoyed a unique career. Could the same man have been operating death camps in Poland in 1942 and singing Schubert in a Berlin recital hall in 1944?

  “It would be remarkable,” George said. “But remember, we still don't have proof it's the same guy. There could have been more than one Franz Beck. It's a common enough name.”

  “Maybe, but the string of coincidences is getting longer and longer. If he was in Reinhard, it would explain the connection with Himmler,” I said.

  Himmler was in charge of the Final Solution and therefore Operation Reinhard. His orders had created Belzec and Treblinka. Silence hovered while we all tried to absorb the possibilities.

  “George, how much do we know about SS rosters at the extermination camps? Could we possibly place this Beck character at a specific place at a specific time?” Janet asked.

  “I'm not sure. I don't think there are rosters. The best way would be to find witnesses. A few Jewish survivors from Treblinka and Sobibor may still be alive; none from Belzec as far as I know. And there must be some Germans and Ukrainians still around who were there, if they'd be willing to talk.”

  “George, I'd like you to stay over there a few more days. Draw up a list of possible witnesses—live ones—anyone who might be able to identify him from the camps. If necessary, I'll come over to help interview them,” I told him. “Is that okay with you, Janet?”

  “It's okay with me if it's okay with George.”

  “George?”

  “No problem, Mark. I started out thinking this was a wild goose chase, but now, with Himmler mixed in, I'm hooked. I want to nail this bastard as much as you do. Let me confer with some German colleagues, and I'll get back to you.”

  Next I briefed Eric on George's discoveries in Germany and my conversations with Susan Scott. I showed him the German extract she had left me.

  Eric whistled softly as he scanned it. “Pretty interesting,” he said. “It definitely whets the appetite. The big question is, where's the rest?”

  “Sophie Reiner probably hid it somewhere. Susan Scott may know, but she's scared to death and isn't talking. I was supposed to meet her for breakfast this morning, but she bolted back home to Boston.”

  “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Just you.”

  “Let's keep it that way. With the department leaking like a sieve, we need to keep this information out of the wrong hands.”

  “So what next?”

  “You have to go up there and talk to her. She's hiding something. I can feel it. That extract you showed me, it proves there really are documents, and I want them.”

  “If I chase after her, she may freak out even more. She's completely unnerved; she begged me to stay away. Maybe I should let her calm down for a few days first.”

  “I'll leave that for you to decide. What about George? What's his next step?”

  “I asked him to locate any surviving witnesses from Operation Reinhard. And before I forget, I'm going to see my dad this weekend in West Virginia. I haven't seen him for months. Lynn is coming, too. We'll probably leave Friday morning and come back Sunday night.”

  Eric smiled. “No hanky-panky in the office. I should transfer her so she isn't working for you anymore.”

  “No need. She found another job with some human rights outfit, but she's agreed to see the Delatrucha case through to the end first.”

  “Okay. And Mark…”

  “Yes?”

  “I'm glad to see you happy.”

  “I'm not used to it. It feels dangerous, like walking on a high wire.”

  “Just remember this case is your top priority. Keep the romance to after hours.”

  I spent the afternoon doing research at the Holocaust Museum. It had opened the previous year and had already become one of the top attractions in Washington, always with a long line of visitors waiting to get in. As I waited in the austere brick-lined lobby to pass through the metal detector, I saw the words of President Clinton displayed on a wall:“The Museum will touch the life of everyone who enters and leave everyone forever changed.”

  I spent a couple of hours reviewing testimony from some of the war crimes trials from the 1960s involving people who had served in Reinhard. None of it contained any reference to anyone who might fit Delatrucha's description. One thing that did emerge from the testimony was the heavy psychological toll that mass murder took on the murderers themselves. Many spent months in a drunken haze—the only way they'd been able to keep on doi
ng their jobs.

  The afternoon minyan afforded a short but welcome break from Nazis . From there, it was back to my office, where I found a long fax from George lying on my desk. Before I could read it, the phone rang again.

  “I heard you had a good meeting with Doneghan,” said Howard, his reedy voice even more oily than usual.

  “It went well. Doneghan and Eric got along like a house on fire.”

  “Jack thought it went well, too. Another performance like that, and Eric will be out of here faster than a greased pig.”

  “Howard, do you have any actual business to discuss, or did you just call to share nonkosher idioms?”

  “I like you, and I respect your work. You're not a blowhard like Rosen. I consider you a valued colleague. I want you to know there'll be a place for you here after the revolution.” He cackled.

  I hung up. The man was becoming more and more brazen, and he always seemed to be a couple of steps ahead of us. Shaking my head, I returned my attention to the fax.

  FROM: George Carter

  TO: Mark Cain

  RE: Franz Beck

  Here are some thoughts following our phone call:

  I think my next move should be to research what we know about Himmler's visits to Poland in 1942. If Beck knew Himmler, they may have met in Poland. As you suggested, I've hired a couple of local grad students to help me with that. There are a number of published sources we can look at, including the diary of Hans Frank, the Nazi governor of Poland, who kept a detailed record of all his meetings. That shouldn't take too long. I should have some details for you on that within a day or two.

  On the question of witnesses, I consulted some German colleagues. They believe there is probably still a relatively large number of Germans alive who took part in Operation Reinhard—guards, railway workers, police, builders, suppliers, etc. However, the list of people who actually served in the camps is much shorter, and it's not certain any will agree to be interviewed. The Germans are trying to track down names and addresses. There are also probably witnesses still living in Ukraine, and possibly survivors in Israel.

  At your end, you should brief the State Department. We're going to need official cooperation from the Ukrainian government to locate witnesses and interview them.