by John Smolens
Vogel was folded into a wheelchair next to his counselors. This didn’t surprise me. He wore wrap-around sunglasses. His head was lifted slightly on his gaunt neck so that he appeared to be concentrating on a point on the wall above the judges’ bench—his posture suggesting that he, and only he, could see a higher mode of justice. Once, just as the judges began to settle in their chairs, he turned his head in my direction, and it seemed he was looking right at me.
Everyone wore cordless headphones, for the translation of the proceedings. Valeria was right: it was cumbersome, disconcerting, and exotically unnatural. Lawyers spoke softly into microphones as though they did not wish to give offense and for long periods entire documents were read aloud. There was the odd sense that no one appeared to be paying attention—everyone seemed to be sorting through paperwork or conferring with a colleague—and yet this muted activity created not a hush, but a hum that seemed to confirm the serious business at hand, and I came to feel that such behavior was inappropriate, even disrespectful, much like whispering during Mass. Thankfully, Valeria, who was seated to my left, never attempted to speak to me, though occasionally she wrote a note in Italian on the yellow legal pad on the table before us. At one point I took her pen and wrote: You have lovely penmanship—and lovelier hands. To which she wrote back: Don’t worry. It will be fine.
Vogel’s lawyers were a man and a woman, both in their fifties. When the woman first got up to address the court, Valeria wrote: Her father was SS.
At one point one of the lawyers at our table, whose name was Pomeroy, leaned toward me and in a Southern drawl asked if I was ready, and when I nodded he patted my hand, though he didn’t seem convinced. I didn’t understand why an American attorney had been selected for this trial in Germany, but then Pomeroy stood up, and when he addressed the three judges on the bench he spoke what to my ear was flawless German. The proceedings started out slowly as all parties discussed what I can only call technicalities. But then the translations became of interest as Pomeroy itemized charges against Vogel. An obese man, Pomeroy had that light sort of weight about his middle that is caused by certain diseases, so that his well-tailored black suit appeared to float about his broad hips as he moved back and forth in front of the judges’ bench. He described Vogel’s activities in Romania during the early stages of the war, which had been dealt with during previous days of the trial. His summary brought to mind the day I had walked the beach in Grosse Pointe Farms with Braun’s mother, Elena. After Elena had died of cancer of the esophagus about a decade earlier, Braun said that the last thing she whispered was “Finally.” Pomeroy mentioned numerous dates and places in Romania where Vogel was alleged to have overseen torture and mass murders. Occasionally, Vogel’s defense, always the woman whose name was Ingrid Bok, interjected a comment, though she rarely objected—this was old business, and at one point, sounding disdainfully bored, she said to the judges, “Herr Pomeroy should consult his calendar. Romania was yesterday. Today we are concerned with the State of Michigan, where my client is guilty of ruthlessly slaughtering trees with an axe.”
Pomeroy’s laugh was self-deprecating and brief, and when he turned his attention to Camp Au Train everything seemed to slow down for me. He mentioned places and the names of prisoners that I knew, and after I finished the bottle of water on the table in front of me, Valeria gave me her bottle. I was afraid of what was coming, and when it did—when my name, Francesco Verdi, was called—I could barely breathe.
“Are you all right?” Valeria whispered in Italian, her hand on my sleeve.
I wasn’t sure I could stand up, let alone speak.
Pomeroy came to the table and leaned down, looking concerned. “What is it?”
“His breathing,” Valeria said to him. “He’s short of breath.”
“I’m all right,” I managed, and slowly I rose from my seat and walked to the witness stand. I was sworn in, in German, but I could hear the translation in Italian in my headphones.
Pomeroy began by asking me a series of questions regarding my past, where I was born, where I was raised, what my family had done before the war. Then he moved on to my service in the Italian army, and soon we were up to the point where I had been captured in Africa and shipped to the prisoner-of-war camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where I worked as a woodcutter. The fact that I had changed my name seemed of little consequence; just as Vogel had changed his name to Horst Albrecht, changing my name from Francesco Verdi to Frank Green was treated as a curiosity of life in the New World. Pomeroy’s questions were straightforward, many of them requiring merely a yes. But I could barely project my voice. To answer I had to lean forward and speak into the small, thin microphone that protruded from the railing in front of me.
With ease, Pomeroy shifted the questions to Vogel’s leadership in the camp. And it was here that Vogel’s attorney, Ingrid Bok, objected repeatedly. At times she was overruled; other times her objection was sustained, in which case Pomeroy would simply rephrase the question. But I realized that she was somehow forcing him to shift his strategy. I wanted to tell him he was asking me the wrong questions. He kept skirting things, unable or unwilling to ask me to describe how Vogel had treated the men in Camp Au Train.
Several times I glanced at Valeria; her face was utterly neutral, but I had the sense that she felt things weren’t going as planned, either. In the gallery, Giannopoulos sat with his arms folded, looking determinedly noncommittal. He reminded me of certain parents at their kids’ hockey games—the kind who don’t stand up and shout and cheer, but sit quietly and observe the game, seeing every nuance of the play, and somehow knowing that to get excited would be pointless because it wouldn’t influence their child’s performance or the outcome of the game. Pomeroy, for his part, seemed content to display his oratory powers and occasionally run his fingers through his silver hair, which was quite full at the sides and in back. And Vogel—when I looked at him, sitting in his wheelchair, his hands folded on the blanket covering his lap—he pointed his face and sunglasses directly at me and didn’t move a muscle.
Finally, Pomeroy asked me to describe what kind of leader Vogel had been at Camp Au Train. It was a question that required more than a yes or a no. I explained how Vogel ruled the camp according to the strictest Nazi principles, and that men who did not conform were judged, sentenced, and punished. I said that Vogel and his men threatened other prisoners, and in some cases they threatened to send word back to Germany that their families should be harassed. I said that this resulted in one prisoner committing suicide, another had ingested crushed glass that had been put in his food—something that could not be done without Vogel’s express approval—and as I was about to mention Adino, Ingrid Bok stood up and objected. She spoke rapidly in German for several minutes. Previously, her objections had been calm, measured responses, but now she was on the verge of outrage. From the Italian translation I learned that she was telling the court that all these allegations were uncorroborated evidence at worst, or at best, the imaginings of an old man whose memory had been clouded by the passage of time. There followed a period where all of the attorneys were ordered to approach the bench, and for a considerable period of time they whispered with the judges. When the huddle broke up, the lawyers returned to their respective tables and put their headphones on again; no one looked satisfied.
When Pomeroy said reluctantly, “No further questions,” I hoped my testimony was finished and was gathering the strength to get out of my chair, but then Fraulein Bok rose to her feet and approached the witness stand. Clearly, she had been a handsome young woman, perhaps even beautiful, but middle age had made her hard. I thought of the word calcification, which my doctors had told me was what was happening to my lungs. What had once been feminine in Ingrid Bok seemed to have turned to stone. She seemed intentionally monolithic. Her calves were massive and she wore a gray tweed suit, very subdued, very professional, which was cut in a fashion that seemed designed to conceal the fact that she had hips and breasts. The shoulders of her ja
cket were padded, and her hair, which I gather had once been blond, was white—pulled back in a bun so tight that it made her face seem taut, the nose, forehead, and cheekbones prominent. Her large blue eyes floated in their own solution, causing me to wonder if she had some medical condition that made them secrete constantly. Yet as she neared the witness stand, I realized that her stare was fierce, demanding, and utterly devoid of forgiveness. Her eyes confirmed my deepest fear: I was the one on trial here.
“Mr. Verdi,” she began, “you were an officer in the Italian army during World War II, and you were sent to the prisoner-of-war camp in Au Train, Michigan.”
This had already been established, so I hesitated, wondering if there was something I was missing, some trick to the way she had asked the question. But finally I said, “Yes.”
“How long were you there?”
“I arrived soon after the camp was opened in May 1944, and—”
“You were released from the camp at the end of the war?”
I glanced at Pomeroy and Valeria, who stared back at me. “No,” I said.
“Please clarify, Mr. Verdi. If you weren’t released—certainly you aren’t still there.”
“I escaped.”
“You escaped? When?”
“Late December, just before New Year’s.”
“And how did you manage to escape?”
“We were cutting down trees and I disappeared into the woods.”
“This seems an indictment of the security measures instituted by the Americans.”
“Perhaps. But the woods there are vast; the distances, they are greater than here in Europe. Others who attempted to escape sometimes returned voluntarily when they realized they could not survive in such an environment. Others simply didn’t know how to get out of the woods and were easily captured.”
“So you were successful in your escape. You got out of the camp and you got out of the woods. Alone?” Before I could answer, she returned to her table, picked up a piece of paper, and faced me again. “Didn’t you escape with a Russian prisoner named Dimitri Sabaneyev?”
“Yes.”
“Together.”
“Briefly. Once we got away from the work detail, we went our separate ways.”
“But, Mr. Verdi, how exactly did you get away from the work detail undetected?”
“I told you we ran away. It wasn’t difficult in such dense woods.”
Confused, she looked down at the sheet of paper in her hand. “You and Sabaneyev planned your escape?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Because otherwise we would be killed.”
“Killed?” She walked slowly toward the witness stand. “And how did you know this?”
“Kommandant Vogel had ordered that I be placed on trial for treason and I was found guilty. The punishment for treason is death.”
“Treason? In a prisoner-of-war camp.”
“Yes.”
“You were charged for what?”
“For saving a child, carrying an American baby out of a burning house. In Vogel’s opinion that baby might grow up, become a soldier, and fight against the Third Reich.” There was murmuring from the gallery, which halted as soon as one of the judges raised his hand. “And also I believe my handling of the camp’s football squad was a treasonable offense.”
Fraulein Bok seemed reluctant to ask, but unable to resist. “How so?”
“Along with being a midfielder, I acted as the team’s coach and I selected the players with the most skill, so I didn’t play many Germans.”
There were a few snickers. The judge cleared his throat and told the gallery that anyone who made any more such disturbances would be removed from the courtroom.
When the room was silent, Fraulein Bok stood at the railing across from me and asked, “You attended this ‘trial’?”
“No.”
“So how do you know about these charges?”
“All the prisoners understood the situation. Vogel’s thoughts on such matters were clear. The New Year was approaching and he wanted to make an impression on the entire camp. I would be an example.”
“But you didn’t wish to defend yourself?”
“I knew the outcome, and Sabaneyev and I escaped the next morning.”
“So, you knew the outcome though you didn’t attend this trial.” Before I could respond, she asked, “Did you ever see or have contact with Sabaneyev again?”
“No.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“I heard he was captured and sent back to the camp, where he was beaten to death.”
“By whom?”
“Nazi POWs, upon Vogel’s order.”
“Did you witness this beating?”
“No.”
“You know the verdict in a trial you didn’t attend, and you know the fate of Dimitri Sabaneyev.” She paused a moment, biting her lower lip in thought. “Thus far, Mr. Verdi, nothing you’ve told us is based on fact.”
“I know what happened in Camp Au Train. I know how Vogel ran it.”
“It may interest you to know that Dimitri Sabaneyev died a little more than two years ago.” Carefully, she folded the sheet of paper in half, sharpening the crease by running it between her forefinger and her long thumbnail. “He died in Holland, where he had been living for years after the end of the war.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Apparently. Before he died, he talked about his experience at Camp Au Train—the interview was recorded and we wish to enter the transcript as evidence for the defense.”
There followed several minutes where court officials proceeded to formally accept this evidence to the court. I sat, staring mostly at Valeria, who looked back at me trying to project a calm disposition, which might pass through the air and enter my body like some phantom spirit. I had reached the age where, when I sat perfectly still, I could feel and hear my heart beating. I did this several times a day, as a means of proving to myself that I was still alive. Sitting in the witness stand, I was so still, so calm that I could feel my heartbeat, and I was relieved that it wasn’t racing, as I assumed it had been when I first took the stand. But all of this was making me weary. I closed my eyes, and for several minutes the sounds of the courtroom seemed to come to me from a great distance.
Then I heard Fraulein Bok’s voice up close, and my eyes opened. She was standing before me, her hands gripping the railing between us. Her voice made me feel like I was a child, a boy who was lying in bed and was going to be late for school.
“Yes?” I said, looking from her to the judges.
“Are you all right, Mr. Verdi?” the judge seated in the middle asked. All three men on the bench were at least as old as I was, and the one in the middle looked almost sympathetic. “Do you wish to continue?”
“No.” There was some murmuring in the gallery; then I said, “But I’m here, so go on.”
I waited for the translation, and then the judge nodded his head. I suspected from his expression that he felt the same way.
When I turned back to Fraulein Bok, her expression made it clear that she believed she was staring at the most worthless specimen of a human being she had ever seen. “Do you remember a prisoner named Otto Werner?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The day you and Sabaneyev escaped, Werner was working with you in the forest?”
“Yes,” I said. “Werner informed me of the verdict at Vogel’s trial the night before.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Did he escape with you?”
“Werner?” I looked toward Pomeroy, who was gazing down at papers on the desk. “No, he didn’t escape with us.”
“Why is that, Mr. Verdi?”
“We didn’t invite him.” There was just one snicker from the gallery, followed by a taut, overbearing silence—a silence in which I felt I could feel and hear the heartbeat of everyone in that courtroom.
“When was the last time you saw Otto Werner?”
“In the woods.”
“In the woods,” she said. “Did he bid you farewell?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Did he say anything about your escaping?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Might that be because he was dead?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “was he?”
“He was brutally beaten with a stick, his skull crushed.”
I merely stared back at her.
“You killed him,” she said.
“No, I didn’t.” I inhaled as much air as I could manage. “And I don’t know that he died in the woods.”
“Mr. Verdi, before Dimitri Sabaneyev died he said that you struck Werner on the head with a heavy stick, and when you ran into the woods, he realized that he had no choice but to run, too.”
“That’s not how it happened.”
“It’s all in the tapes. It’s what Sabaneyev said shortly before he died.”
“But that’s not how it happened.”
“If you didn’t kill Werner, who did?”
I merely stared at her.
“Answer the question,” one of the judges said.
“You want me to accuse a dead man?” I asked, still looking at Ingrid Bok.
“Who killed Otto Werner?” she asked, raising her voice just slightly.
“Dimitri struck him with a stick. Once. It was enough for us to get away into the woods without Werner alerting the guards. I don’t know for a fact that he was dead.”
“Mr. Verdi,” Fraulein Bok began in exasperation, but Pomeroy stood up and spoke at length, raising an objection. Though he was fluent in German, he was speaking in English. I didn’t know why—perhaps because it might have some effect on the judges’ decision. Though I come from a country full of different accents and dialects, because I have always lived in Michigan since arriving in the United States, I find most Southern accents to be overly dramatic and false, to the point where I have on occasion suspected that at night people from places like Arkansas and Georgia go home and in private remove their Southern accents as they would a change of clothes and speak English like my friends and neighbors in the northern Midwest. Pomeroy seemed to speak with a determination to prove me wrong, that his Southern accent was as genuine as the day he was born. (This was a phrase he used, one of many such colloquialisms I understood without knowing its origin. He said to the judges that despite my poor health I had traveled all the way to Germany to provide testimony that was as forthright and honest as the day I was born.) He was very convincing. The essence of his argument was that I wasn’t on trial, Vogel was, and with the exception of a tape of a purported dead man’s voice, there was no evidence regarding how Otto Werner died, other than when he was returned to the camp there was a record of the fact that a doctor had determined that he was dead. There was no record as to whether the contusion on the back of his head was the result of a blow from a stick, a stone, or perhaps the result of a fall; and there certainly was no evidence, Pomeroy concluded with an impressive flourish, as to whether Werner’s death was intentional, accidental, or even self-inflicted.