Bearing Witness

by Michael A. Kahn

  I took my seat, placed my purse and briefcase on the floor beneath the coffee table, and gave him my friendliest smile. “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Roth.”

  He had the cane resting between his knees, with his hands crossed on top of the cane handle. He was watching me with a distinctly guarded expression. Yesterday, I’d had to practically beg him on the phone before he reluctantly agreed to see me. He frowned. “Where’d you find my reports?”

  I explained.

  He listened carefully. “Levine, eh? Good man. Even if he was a rabbi. Don’t like rabbis.” His voice grew louder. “Never did. Don’t trust ’em.” He snorted. “Steal your eyes right out of your head if you gave ’em a chance.” He glared at me. “Haven’t been in a damn synagogue since the day I married Mrs. Roth. Fifty-seven years ago. Never gone back.” He thrust his chin forward. “Never will.”

  I nodded silently.

  “Don’t get it,” he said with a frown.

  “Pardon?”

  He grunted. “You. Your interest in this.” He shook his head. “Ancient history. What do you care?”

  I gave him a short description of the lawsuit and how I thought Conrad Beckman’s dark past might have some relevance to at least the origins of the bid-rigging conspiracy, especially his relationship with Max Kruppa in Memphis.

  “Kruppa,” he mused, squinting as he tried to remember. “Rings a bell.” He paused, eyeing me dubiously. “What else?”

  I gave him a puzzled look. “I’m sorry, Mr. Roth, I’m not following you.”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “That Bund stuff—ancient history. Has to be more than that.”

  I thought it over. “Well, my friend—a boyfriend, actually—has been investigating one of the modern Nazi groups. Their headquarters are here in St. Louis. They’re called Spider.” I paused for a moment, and then shrugged. “I guess that’s not a logical reason for me to be here, but it makes me want to know more about what happened then.”

  “Spider?” he repeated.

  I nodded.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, angry. “Those bastards again.”

  “Again?”

  He shook his head in disgust. “Nazi bastards.” He pronounced “Nazi” to rhyme with “snazzy.”

  “In addition,” I said slowly, hesitantly, “there’s another reason. Probably the most important reason.” I reached for my purse and opened my wallet to the photograph of my mother. I walked over to him. “Here,” I said. “This is my mother.”

  He held the photograph close to his face and squinted at it. He looked up at me.

  “When the Nazis came to power,” I said quietly, “she was a little girl in Lithuania. She was lucky. She lived. So did her sister and so did her mother—my grandmother Rachel. They escaped. But her father—my grandfather—didn’t. Her uncles and aunts didn’t. Her grandparents didn’t. They all died in the concentration camps. The Nazis murdered them.”

  He handed me the wallet. I walked over to the couch, surprised by the rush of emotions, trying to keep them in check. I took a deep breath, searching for the words. He was leaning forward on his cane, waiting.

  I shook my head helplessly. “I’m not sure what the connection is, Mr. Roth, but I know that I have to do this, to see it through. When I started this lawsuit, I had no idea that there was this other stuff, but now I do. I’m not sure what’s hidden back there, but I have to find out. I have to try to close the loop.” I gave him a sad smile. “I’m not kidding myself, Mr. Roth. Believe me, this is no crusade. I know that what I discover isn’t going to bring my mother’s family back. But still…” I paused, wiping a tear from my cheek. “I feel that I owe it to them.”

  He studied me. I met his gaze, blinking.

  Finally, he grunted. “Okay.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Roth.”

  “Call me Harold, young lady.”

  I smiled and sniffled. “Okay, Harold.” I paused to open my briefcase. “I’ve read all of your reports. Or at least I think I did. I read the ones on the Bund and the ones on the other groups.”

  “Been a long time. Don’t know how much I can recall.”

  “I can help,” I said, pulling out a folder.

  I went over his various reports. His mind was sharp and his memory excellent. Before I could finish a description of a report he had written more than fifty years ago, he would have already recalled most of the key facts in that report and a subsequent one on the same topic. When I reached the last one—his half-page report on the Death’s Head Formation—I paused to pull a photocopy of it out of my briefcase.

  “This is the last one in Rabbi Levine’s archives,” I told him as I stood up and came over to his chair, “and the only one on this organization.”

  He took the report from me and read it slowly, holding it close to his face. I returned to the couch and waited. When he finished, he looked up, his lips pursed solemnly.

  “Did you write any others on that group?” I asked.

  He shook his head gravely.

  “Any other reports at all?”

  He scowled as he considered the question. “Not a report,” he finally said.

  I waited.

  “Kept a journal,” he said. “On those people. Others, too. All those Nazi bastards.”

  “What kind of journal?” I asked carefully.

  He gave me a proud look. “What I saw. What I learned.”

  “Did that include the Death’s Head Formation?”

  “You bet,” he said fiercely.

  “Do you still have it?”

  He leaned back and eyed me warily. “Might.”

  I caught myself, realizing that I was moving far too fast for him. According to what Jacki had been able to glean from the Anti-Defamation League records, his wife had died of lung cancer twenty-one years ago. Their only son had died in Vietnam in 1967. Harold Roth had been living alone for many, many years. And now, out of the blue, a young woman arrives eager to pry into a chapter of his life that had been closed for more than half a century.

  I gave him a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, Mr. Roth. I guess it’s because I have this trial coming up and I’m so excited to have found a person who might be able to shed a little light on Conrad Beckman’s past. Every time I think I might be on to something important, it seems like five lawyers from his firm pop up to block me.” I sighed and shook my head. “Some people put themselves to sleep at night counting sheep. Well, I do it by counting lawyers from Roth and Bowles.”

  “Roth and Bowles?” he said sharply. “That’s his lawyers?”

  “Technically, they represent his company. Why, do you know of them?”

  He nodded darkly. “Stanley Roth.”

  “Really?” I was intrigued. “How?”

  “Bastard’s my nephew. My brother’s son. Beckman’s lawyer? Jesus Christ.” He shook his head. “Poor brother. Spinning in his grave.”

  I was as surprised as he, but the unexpected link seemed to lessen his distrust of me. I tried to work him gradually back around to the journal. We talked some about his brother and the rest of his family and some about how he used to do his surveillance of the Bund in the early days. I told him about Max Kruppa’s letter in German to Conrad Beckman.

  “Memphis, eh?” He leaned forward and rested his chin on the top of his cane. “Rings a bell. What business was Kruppa in?”

  “Back then? Construction, I think. Maybe plumbing. The company grew into a pretty big contractor over the years.”

  “Successful?”

  I nodded. “Definitely.”

  “Your lawsuit.” He paused, frowning in thought. “You think there’s a connection between that Memphis company and Beckman’s company?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Run that by me again.”

  I gave him a brief outline of the bid-rigging allegations.
/>   He nodded as he listened. When I finished, he nodded his head slowly. “Any other connections?”

  “Not really. Well, actually, they did do a joint venture outside of the United States back in the 1950s. A water treatment plant. It doesn’t seem relevant to my case, but my expert witness tells me that the two companies had to have lost a lot of money on the project.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Down in South America.”

  “Where?”

  “A little resort town in the mountains. San something—I can’t remember the name.”

  “San Carlos de Bariloche?”

  I looked at him, stunned. “How did you know?”

  “Memphis, eh?” he said, ignoring my question. “Had a unit down there.”

  “You mean the Bund?”

  He snorted. “Later. Death’s Head, and all the rest.”

  “All the rest of what?”

  He scratched his neck as he stared at me.

  I waited.

  “Die Spinne.”

  I wasn’t sure of what he said. “Spin?” I repeated.

  “Spinne,” he said. “S-P-I-N-N-E.”

  “Spinne? Die Spinne?”

  He nodded.

  “What is it?”

  He studied me for a moment. “It’s in my journal.”

  I paused, not wanting to force the issue. I gestured toward the photocopy of his last undercover report. “According to your source at that tavern,” I said, “the leader of the Death’s Head Formation was bragging that his storm troopers were willing to commit violence to further the cause.” I paused and looked at him. “Did they?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. “Don’t need my journal for that.”

  “But where else would I look?”

  “In the damn newspaper.”

  “But when? Which days?”

  “When?” he said irritably. “Big celebration days.”

  I frowned. “Like July Fourth?”

  He laughed. “Nazi days.”

  “But isn’t that information already in your journal?”

  He paused, sizing me up again. “Might be.”

  “Is your journal here? In the apartment?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, no. Don’t keep it on the premises.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “When I die, it’s going to that Holocaust Museum in Washington. Got the whole thing laid out in my will.” He sat back, pleased and defiant. “People are going to sit up and take notice.” He nodded firmly. “You bet.”

  I paused. “Could I see it, Mr. Roth?”

  He pursed his lips. “Maybe.”

  “Today?”

  “No.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?” he repeated.

  “It’s important to me, sir,” I said. “I’ll be happy to go with you to the safe-deposit box or wherever you keep it.”

  “I’m not saying where I keep it,” he said testily. He studied me for a moment. “Eleven o’clock tomorrow. Give you an hour. No more. One hour and then out.”

  I smiled. “Fair enough, Harold. It’s a deal.”

  He wagged a finger at me. “Eleven o’clock. Don’t be late.”

  I saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

  He studied me for a moment, and then he showed me something I hadn’t seen before. He showed me a smile. It was a lovely smile.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I spent most of that afternoon in the chambers of Judge Catherine Wagner. The occasion was our final pretrial conference—a standard meeting of the attorneys and judge scheduled one week before trial. Typically, the final pretrial conference is an opportunity for the parties to resolve any remaining evidentiary disputes and for the judge to once again explore settlement possibilities. Kimberly Howard was there for the evidentiary disputes, and Stanley Roth was there for settlement discussions. I was there alone, with my client waiting in the courtroom alone.

  The judge focused on the areas of contention first, but after two hours of wrangling, the key issues remained in dispute. Kimberly Howard objected to my plan to introduce evidence of the relationships among the various co-conspirators during the decades prior to the period covered by my lawsuit, and I objected to her motion to exclude all evidence of what she characterized as Conrad Beckman’s “entirely irrelevant childhood curiosity in certain aspects of German nationalism.” Although Judge Wagner was leaning toward granting Kimberly’s motion, she agreed to defer her ruling until the trial began in order to give me an opportunity, outside the jury’s presence, to try to demonstrate that Conrad Beckman’s involvement in the American Nazi movement of the 1930s enabled him to forge an important link with at least some of his co-conspirators in what became the bid-rigging scheme.

  “Time’s running out, Counselor,” she told me sternly, “but I’ll give you until the first day of trial.”

  When Judge Wagner turned to settlement, Stanley Roth took over for the defendant. He gave a lengthy spiel on Beckman Engineering’s innocence and then magnanimously announced that in the interest of saving the parties and the court the time and expense of a lengthy, acrimonious trial, his client was prepared to raise its settlement offer from $150,000 to $250,000, the payment to be characterized as an “enhancement” of Ruth’s retirement package and paid in full following her dismissal of the qui tam claims with prejudice.

  I conferred briefly out in the courtroom with Ruth Alpert and returned to chambers to decline the offer.

  To say that Judge Wagner was unhappy with our response was an understatement. She sent the other side out of the room, gave me a blistering lecture on the risks of litigation, and demanded that my client and I come up with a counteroffer. I again conferred in the courtroom with Ruth and this time returned with a counteroffer: $10 million, to be treated as a settlement of the qui tam claim (under which 30 percent of the settlement would be paid to Ruth and the rest to the government). In the language of diplomacy, our proposal triggered a full and frank exchange of viewpoints followed by a consensus among those present that conditions were not yet sufficiently propitious to justify a continuation of negotiations.

  But on the way down the hall toward the elevators, Stanley Roth asked me to join him for a moment in an empty jury room. Once inside, he turned to me and said, “Your settlement position is preposterous.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t agree.”

  “Ten million dollars?” He snorted. “Come on, Rachel. What’s your real number?”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” I said with a smile. “Come on, Stanley. What’s your real number?”

  “That is a real number, Rachel. My God, that’s an extraordinary amount of money for your client. And for you. What’s your contingent fee deal?”

  “None of your business.”

  “A third? Do the math. It’s more than eighty grand in your pocket. Better yet, both of you get your money today. Look at the alternative: the two of you can spend four grueling weeks in this courtroom and walk out of here with absolutely nothing.”

  I shrugged. “Stanley, you’re a corporate lawyer. I’m a trial lawyer. Corporate lawyers earn their living resolving matters. Some things can’t be resolved.” I looked around the room. “That’s why we have courthouses.”

  He shook his head, exasperated. “You’re being completely irrational.” He paused lowering his voice. “And this American Nazi nonsense is preposterous. Worse than preposterous—it’s a totally unjustified diversionary tactic. Conrad Beckman is a great American citizen. Your allegations are nothing short of defamation. Do you truly believe he’s the only man of stature to have made a mistake in his youth? His story is no different from dozens of great men. Look at Supreme Court Justice Harlan Black, a man who rose above his racist youth to become one of our country’s greatest defenders of civil liberties. Look at St. Augustine. Look at Moses, for God’s sake.
” He shook his head angrily. “Same with Conrad Beckman. So what if he had an adolescent flirtation with Nazism? Look at him now.”

  “It was more than a flirtation, Stanley.”

  He snorted. “Says who?”

  I gazed at him calmly. “For starters, your uncle Harold.”

  That answer seemed to stagger him. “Harold Roth? What in God’s name would Harold know?”

  “Enough,” I said.

  He gave me a puzzled look, and then he shook his head in disbelief. “Oh, for God’s sake. Not that old Jewish Defense Alliance nonsense? Harold’s unreliable. He’s a bitter old paranoid.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t agree.”

  “Come on, Rachel,” he said impatiently. “This is a federal trial. You’re going to need more than the ramblings of an old man. You’re going to need real evidence.”

  He paced around the room, shaking his head as he did. He stopped in front of me. “Look at me, Rachel.” He patted his chest. “I’m a Jew. Just like you. I understand what it means to be a Jew. I understand that the Nazis tried to exterminate us, to wipe us off the face of the earth. Do you honestly believe that I would represent a man that I thought was once seriously involved in the American Nazi movement? It’s ludicrous. It’s unthinkable.”

  I shrugged. “Then you may be in for a surprise, Stanley. That’s all I can say.”

  He nostrils flared in anger. He straightened up and pointed a finger at me. “And you may be in for a surprise yourself, young lady, if you start throwing around baseless allegations in court.”

  I stared at him. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

  He stared right back. “I don’t make threats.”

  I tried to keep my voice calm. “And I don’t throw around baseless allegations.”

  After a moment he stepped back and took a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “I apologize, Rachel. I didn’t ask you in here to pick a fight. Look, talk to your client. Please. Beckman Engineering is offering a lot of money. A quarter of a million dollars, Rachel. That’s far more than she could ever have hoped to win on that age discrimination case.” He paused. “I might even be able to squeeze another fifty grand out of the company if that’s what it’ll take to get the deal done. Talk to her, Rachel. Please.”