The Nazi Hunter

by Alan Elsner

  “A loyal, upstanding Nazi,” George commented.

  “This is his diary.” I couldn't believe I finally had it in my hands. I flipped to the last entry in the other book.

  October 31, 1943. Today I left Poland and will finally return to my Fatherland. A day of joy in my life. I have seen so many terrible things, but now a new chapter begins. From this day, I swear to devote myself only to music, only to art. The past is dead. I will wipe out the ugliness and replace it with beauty.

  Two exercise books. Within their pages, I hoped we would find the truth about Beck's actions during the years in Operation Reinhard and the destruction of Polish Jewry.

  “What now? It's going to take hours to translate all these,” George said. “I'm worried about the snow.”

  “I want every single page photocopied. We can't risk working with the originals. They may be fragile after all these years. Be very careful as you photocopy them. We can work all night in my office if necessary. We'll divide the translation, you and me. By tomorrow, we should be able to give Eric a full report he can use to decide what to do.”

  “It's going to be Shabbat in about four hours,” Lynn observed.

  Shit. I had forgotten. That meant no working, no cooking, no writing, no switching lights on or off. What was I going to do? Was it permissible to work on Shabbat to help nail Delatrucha?

  “You'll have to do it without me,” I said.

  George gawped at me uncomprehendingly. “The biggest case of your life, and you're going to sit there and do nothing all day? Couldn't you make an exception just this one time?” Lynn was obviously thinking the same thing.

  “The only acceptable reason to break Shabbat is to save a life, and we're not saving lives here. This isn't a small thing to me. The rabbis teach us that the Temple was destroyed because the people broke Shabbat.”

  “That's nonsense,” George said. “It was destroyed because the Babylonians and Romans had bigger armies than the Jews.”

  “I'm not going to argue ancient history with you. I'll work up to the start of Shabbat and all Saturday night, but I won't work tonight or tomorrow during the day.”

  George shook his head. “Well, we're not going to work in the office. If we stay there, we'll be trapped. No food and nowhere to sleep. We must have had three inches already. The whole city is hunkering down. Look outside.” He was right—the street was deserted except for a thin stream of traffic heading south toward Virginia. A lone truck trundled past the museum entrance. It pulled over for a moment, but a guard came out and waved it on.

  “You could come to my apartment, but you can't cook, and I don't want you switching lights on and off all day,” I said.

  “Come to my place,” Lynn countered. “My roommate is out of town, so I have an extra bedroom. Mark can do his Shabbat thing in my room while the rest of us work. We can stock up on food, but we need to decide now. I'll see if I can buy some food and then meet you back at my place in a couple of hours. Mark knows where it is.”

  “The supermarket shelves are probably already bare,” said George, ever the optimist. “We'll starve to death.”

  I thought about whether I should even spend the day with them while they were working, but I decided not to be unreasonable. If they respected me and my ways, I should be able to do the same for them.

  By the time we had finished photocopying all the material, the museum was virtually empty, and the remaining staff was anxious to push us out so they could close for the storm. George called his wife, and said he'd be working at Lynn's apartment late into the night. “I'll probably be stranded there the whole weekend,” he said gloomily. “With Mark Cain, no less.”

  “Tell her to come over, too,” I said. “The more the merrier. We'll have a slumber party.” He brightened up a bit after she said she would come.

  A U-Haul truck pulled up near the entrance as we left the museum. Just like the one I had seen from the window less than an hour before. “Wait a sec,” I told George.

  “What now?” he asked.

  Ignoring him, I jogged back toward the truck, my feet slipping in the snow. The security guard, to whom we had just said good-bye, dashed out of the museum, waving his arms. “I told you already, you can't stop here! What's wrong with you guys?” he yelled at the driver.

  The man sitting in the driver's seat, illuminated in the half-light, looked vaguely familiar. Our eyes met for a brief second, but I couldn't place him. Something wasn't right here. I could feel it, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then they took off. It was too dark to read the plate, and the van pulled out into the swirling snow.

  I swept the snow off the windows of my car—one of the few left in the office parking lot—and we started driving toward Lynn's apartment, taking it very slowly. The street lights shed a pale, sickly yellow glow over the sidewalks. Washington was turning into a ghost town.

  “What was that about back there with the truck?” George asked.

  “I thought I recognized one of the guys.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Not sure.” But I couldn't get him out of my head, and the first thing I did once we got in the door was call Agent Fabrizio.

  “It's Mark Cain. Where are you?” I asked her after I was patched through.

  “Terrorism task force headquarters. Please don't tell me someone attacked you again.”

  “Nothing like that. I saw a U-Haul try to park twice outside the Holocaust Museum in the space of a few minutes. A security guard moved them on both times,” I said. “There were two guys in the cab. One of them looked like one of the thugs that attacked us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, I'm not sure. I only saw him briefly. That's why I'm calling you.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Not more than an hour ago. The streets were almost deserted. That's what made it so noticeable.”

  “Did you get the license?”

  “They took off too fast.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know.”

  “What kind of truck was it?”

  “I already told you: It was a U-Haul.”

  “Was it one of their super movers, a really big one, a twenty-six-footer? Or was it a van? Or something in between?”

  “It was small, but not that small—maybe twelve or fourteen feet long.”

  “What was painted on it? They all have different slogans and pictures painted on the side.”

  I tried to conjure up an image from my memory. A vague picture began to form. “I think it was a picture of some kind of creature. A long neck and a big head full of teeth.”

  “Like a tiger?”

  “No, more like a dinosaur. A T. rex or something like that.”

  “A dinosaur? That means the truck could have come from somewhere out West, like Montana or Utah—a state with lots of fossils. That may help us find out where it was rented. Thank you, Mark. This could be a big help.”

  “Why would they try to blow up the Holocaust Museum?”

  “Sounds to me like they were scouting, looking for a soft target. They may try to attack during the snowstorm when everybody's guard is down. At least now we know what we're looking for, and we can beef up security around key buildings. Gotta go.” She hung up.

  I put on a pot of coffee while George wandered the apartment. There was still a couple of hours left before I had to light the Shabbat candles. We began with the letters and decided to go on to the journal later, leaving the best for last.

  The doorbell rang. It was George's wife, followed closely by Lynn, carrying three bags of groceries. George greeted his beloved in a strange language—Estonian perhaps. She smiled shyly at me as Lynn steered her toward the kitchen.

  “This is going to be fun,” Lynn said. “We're going to make chicken in wine sauce with roasted potatoes and vegetables. It's the last chicken in Washington, and these are the last potatoes. After this, we'll have to cast lots to see which one of us gets to eat.”

  Another religious dilemma—to ea
t or not to eat? I decided to eat everything but the chicken. This was going to be tough enough without acting like a religious prima donna.

  “You should see the snow out there. It's piling up like crazy,” Lynn said, squeezing my hand. “We're trapped, like in Little House on the Prairie.”

  “Trapped all weekend with Roberto the Nazi,” George smirked. “Let's get started.”

  For an hour, we worked doggedly as delicious smells filled the apartment. George broke the silence. “Listen to this. August 3, 1941, from Kraków.” Lynn and Marie came in to listen, too.

  “Go on,” I said.

  Dear Hildegard,

  You are always in my thoughts. I hope this letter finds you well. I have hopes of receiving a furlough some time this autumn.

  What bliss it would be to see the leaves turn gold in our beautiful city with you beside me.

  “I've been reading that kind of stuff, too. He had his sentimental side, our Franz,” I said.

  “It's so totally creepy,” Lynn said, “knowing what we know about him.”

  “The interesting bit is just coming,” George said. He read on.

  The weather here continues fine, and life definitely has its rewards. We found a piano in the house we are occupying, owned by citizens who have relocated to another part of town—

  “Jews,” I interrupted.

  “Presumably,” George said.

  The piano is a fine German instrument, a Bechstein…

  “Oh, my God, that's the letter Susan Scott gave us!” Lynn interrupted. “Now we have the date. What's the rest say?”

  George continued:

  I was able to stretch my fingers and even my voice. After weeks without practice, I was very rusty. To think that music was once my entire life. Those days seem long ago. Still, sometimes I hear the notes of a song echoing in my head. The other day, I seemed to hear the sounds of Schubert's “Trout” — that much-loved song so dear to us both. I tried to banish the notes from my mind. They have no place here. And yet, though I perform my duties with enthusiasm, I must confess that I sometimes miss singing. My comrades were surprised and delighted at my abilities. They want to organize a concert at which I would sing for the entire unit. I told them music was in the past for me.

  There is no time for singing now. That time will come again after victory. Life meanwhile continues on its rigorous path. I strive each day to harden my soul. The future is not built by weaklings. Unpleasant jobs need to be done, and we are doing them. In the meantime…

  “That's where Susan Scott's extract ended,” I said.

  “That's the end of the page,” George said. “The most incriminating stuff is coming up.”

  In the meantime, we are clearing and cleansing the city of those who no longer belong. Occasionally, there are forays to surrounding villages, which is not pleasant work. Unavoidable, I suppose, but it's not easy on the men. Only the strongest can do this work. I believe I myself am strong but I sometimes wish I were stronger yet. I tell myself it's like taking medicine. It tastes bad, but it's necessary, and it makes us all more healthy. I think of you often and send you many kisses.

  “Pity he's not more explicit,” I said.

  “Yes, it's full of euphemisms. This was before they had opened the extermination camps, remember,” George said. “They had police and SS units going into villages and shooting thousands of Jews. Eventually, they decided they could never get the job done like that. Too many people to kill, and it was too inefficient and messy.”

  “And too stressful for the killers,” I said. “He seems to hint at that in the letter. The most interesting one I've found so far is from 1942. The tone is similar, with all kinds of little hints but nothing specific.”

  “Let's hear.”

  May 15, 1942.

  Dear Hildegard,

  I have come to a place, the name of which I am not at liberty to tell you.

  “Belzec,” George guessed.

  “Could be. Unfortunately, he doesn't say.”

  Here is war at its hardest and most merciless. About my work I cannot speak. Enough to say that it is not for everybody. Only for the strongest.

  “More euphemisms,” George commented. “It wasn't war at all, it was slaughtering defenseless people.”

  Sometimes, I have problems putting behind me the cares of the day when I finally lie down to sleep. Then I think of you and our precious moments together. Our long walks, our talks, the wonderful vistas of our homeland, which seem so far away to me now. How wonderful were those lovely days last October when we were together. I pray for their return after we have achieved our victory. How I admire my comrades. What a fine body of men. We are changing history, totally and irrevocably. One day perhaps, history will tell our story and appreciate our sacrifice. Sometimes I yearn for music again. Surely there will be a place of honor for German culture in this new world we are building.

  With all my love,

  Your Franz

  “Maybe we should skip the letters and go straight to the journal,” George said. “Go for the real dirt.”

  “No, we need to go over everything in order. Let's finish the letters first and then do the journal. I'm going to stop working and ask Lynn to light the candles in another hour.”

  The phone rang. Eric wanted to know what we had discovered.

  “We're going through all the material. There's a lot. It's going to take a while,” I said.

  “The weather's given us a bit more breathing room. Nothing's going to happen tomorrow. What exactly have you found?”

  “The photos prove that Delatrucha served in the SS. That makes him deportable from the United States, since he lied on his citizenship application. But I think there's a lot more. We haven't even started on the journal yet.”

  “I'm going to call the White House chief of staff and the attorney general to give them a heads-up. The city will be at a standstill, but we should probably try to brief them sometime on Sunday. Is George with you?”

  “And his wife and Lynn as well. We have quite a party going here. We're just about to eat coq au vin. You wanna come?”

  “I'll pass. Nobody's going anywhere tonight unless they're crazy. We've had a foot already, and they say there's another foot to come. I'll call tomorrow night to see how you're getting on. In the meantime, Mark, mazel tov. I'm going to enjoy the look on Jack Doneghan's face when I tell him his precious financial backer is a Nazi.”

  Lynn stood over the candles to make the blessing. “This feels a bit weird, us all being brought here together because of that rat Delatrucha, but it's a special day after all, and we're blessed to be spending it with friends.” She lit the candles, closed her eyes, and passed her hands three times over the flames, the way my mother used to when I was little. Then she recited the blessing, ushering in the holy day. I chanted the blessings over the wine and the bread. We took our time, finishing the first bottle and polishing off a second. Lynn suggested we get a breath of fresh air. We wrapped ourselves in coats, hats, and gloves and trudged out into the parking lot, sinking up to our knees in the soft, virgin snow. With difficulty, I had waddled a few steps ahead when something wet and cold hit me on the neck. Retaliation was swift and certain. It was all-out war, first Lynn and I against George and Marie, then George and I against Lynn and Marie, and, finally, due to unbelievable treachery, everyone against me. I retreated to the safety of the lobby.

  Lynn and Marie made snow angels in the parking lot, sinking deep into the powder, emerging white like true angels. We were wet and exhausted by the time we got back to the apartment, but it had been a necessary cleansing. Too much Franz Beck was like wallowing in toxic filth.

  “If there's no hurry anymore, I'll leave the translation until tomorrow. I'll work all day, and you can join me in the evening to finish it up,” George suggested.

  “Suits me,” I said, eager to be alone with Lynn. “It's been secret for fifty years. Another day won't make any difference.”

  24

  The whole surface of the
camp was covered with human bones, hair and ashes from cremated corpses.

  —TESTIMONY OF EDWARD LUCZYNSKI

  IT WAS STILL SNOWING OUTSIDE next morning. I decided to go to shul, which was only a few blocks from Lynn's apartment. To my surprise, she came, too. It took us a while to get there, sinking into the snow almost up to our knees. Another twenty hardy folk had braved the elements, so there was no problem making the minyan. The weekly Torah extract, from Exodus, included a passage on keeping the Shabbat: “God told Moses to speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘You must keep my Sabbaths, for it is a sign between Me and you for all generations to know that I, God, am making you holy.’”

  After the service, several congregants surrounded Lynn, showering her with polite questions. “Finally, our Mark has brought a lovely young woman to services. Every married lady in the congregation has been trying to fix him up for years, but he rejected all their offerings. They'd just about given up hope,” one old man told her. On the way home, she told me she'd enjoyed the service. “I didn't pray the way you do. I just read the words in English.”

  “That's okay,” I said. “There isn't a right and wrong way to do it.”

  Most of the afternoon I napped and read. George got on with the translating quietly in the spare bedroom. When the light faded and Shabbat departed, I said the Havdalah blessings to welcome the new week, and we all resumed work. Lynn typed up our translations. Our mood grew grimmer as, little by little, the pile of paper grew thicker. I guzzled cup after cup of black coffee until we ran out. Around 10:30 P. M., we finished. Snowplows had circled the neighborhood several times, clearing the roads, and George and Marie were able to leave.

  Lynn and I went for a short walk after they left—another attempt to clear the poison from our minds. We were the only people on the street, crunching along the sidewalk, breathing the cold, dark air, and holding hands. This time, though, there were no snowballs, no games. We now knew the whole story. The truth had not set us free, any more than it had Sophie Reiner.