Lehrter Station

by David Downing

  The afternoon wore on, until darkness finally filled the valleys. Yellow lamps now glowed on the station platforms, and myriad wood fires crackled beside the frequent refuge sidings. At one such passing place, their train pulled up alongside another, and the sound of singing rose from the latter’s lightless compartments, a young girl’s voice both sweet and infinitely sad. It was, Albert said, a song about a Jewish mother who saves her daughter by placing her in a Christian orphanage.

  Another song followed, this one sung by many voices and accompanied by mandolin. According to Albert it was a paean to the writer’s home, a simple village somewhere in the Pale which he or she would never see again.

  When their own train jerked into motion, and swallowed the voices up, Russell found himself feeling almost bereft. The emotions which flickered on Albert’s face were the ones Russell remembered from 1939 – anger and bitterness.

  They travelled on, eventually reaching the junction for Náchod too late for the last connection. After checking the time of the first morning train, they walked across the dung-strewn forecourt to the only available inn. The proprietor’s initial suspicion of Albert was mollified by the false documentation, and Russell’s American passport was enough to secure them a late supper. The latter was somewhat spoiled – for Russell at least – by their host’s insistence on regaling them with tales of Czech revenge against the local Germans. Albert seemed happy to hear them, but the proprietor’s wife, who had served up their supper, looked even more disgusted than Russell. ‘What an achievement,’ she said sarcastically. ‘We’ve become just like them.’

  * * *

  There turned out to be several Party offices, but the one where Miroslav Zembski worked was on Klosterstrasse, in a building that Effi remembered as once housing an art gallery. The size of Zembski’s second floor office suggested a man of some importance.

  He stared at Effi for several moments before recognition dawned. ‘Fräulein Koenen,’ he finally said, his face breaking into a smile. ‘Or are you and Herr Russell married these days?’

  ‘No, we still haven’t got round to it,’ Effi told him. Zembski was hardly wafer-thin, but it was difficult to believe that Russell had dubbed him ‘the Fat Silesian’.

  ‘I heard he was back. How is he?’

  ‘He’s all right. He’s in Austria at the moment – at least I think he is. But I know he means to come and see you – he only just heard you’re alive. When he turned up at your studio in 1941 and found that you’d been arrested… well, he feared the worst.’

  ‘He wasn’t the only one,’ Zembski said drily. ‘It would be good to see him again,’ he added, ‘but what can I do for you?’

  She looked at him. Until that moment, she’d been planning on hiring him – or whoever he recommended – with some sort of cock-and-bull story, and without revealing her motives. But it made more sense to be straight with him. She would have a clearer conscience, and probably get better results. ‘I need a photographer,’ she began. ‘I need someone to take pictures at the Honey Trap nightclub on the Ku’damm without arousing suspicion. Inside and outside. Inside, the photographer should look like he’s concentrating on the singer Irma Wocz – she’s an old friend, by the way – but catch as many people in the background as he can. Staff in particular, but customers too. The club is on a corner, and there’s a back way out onto Leibniz Strasse which only employees use. The buildings across the street were destroyed, and there’s plenty of rubble for a photographer to hide in. I need pictures of anyone using that exit.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what it’s all about?’ Zembski asked.

  ‘The man who owns the club is a black marketeer who employs ex-Nazis. If I have photographs, I can get them identified.’

  ‘Why not just go to the Americans?’

  ‘That’s a long story. John could tell you…’

  ‘Ah, Mr Russell. Always in trouble with the authorities.’

  ‘I’ll tell him you said so. He’ll be pleased.’

  Zembski laughed.

  ‘So do you still work as a photographer?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  There was something in the way he said it that made her ask why.

  ‘The camp I was in – the commandant saw the occupation on my arrest sheet, and made me his camp photographer. I won’t go into what he had me photograph.’

  ‘I understand. Can you recommend someone else?’

  ‘Actually I can. He’s the son of someone I knew in the camp – someone who died there. I let the boy use my old studio in Neukölln. His name’s Horst Sattler. He’s young, but he’s good. Mostly he buys and sells cameras – there’s not much demand for wedding pictures at the moment – but he knows how to use a camera. And I think he’d like your proposition.’ Zembski looked at his watch. ‘He’s usually there until about six. Say that you talked to me about the job, and that I recommended him.’

  She wrote down the address he dictated, promised to convey his good wishes to Russell, and walked to the nearest U-Bahn. Half an hour later she was in the studio, introducing herself to its young proprietor. Horst Sattler was skinny, with bushy black hair and glasses that made him look like a teenage Trotsky. Through the window behind him several young boys were playing football with a battered tin can.

  Sattler’s eyes lit up when Effi outlined what she wanted – which was hardly the reaction she expected. Did he realise who she was talking about, that there might be dangers involved?

  ‘Of course,’ he said with a grin, as if surreptitiously photographing black marketeers was something he did all the time.

  ‘I haven’t sorted out the inside part yet,’ Effi told him; ‘I have to talk to my singer friend.’ Which was not only true, but would also give the boy a chance to prove his worth without actually sticking his head between Geruschke’s jaws. ‘If you could start outside…’

  ‘Absolutely. I have the perfect lens.’ He took it out to show her, and rattled on about stops and apertures and heaven knew what else.

  ‘You must be careful,’ she insisted. ‘Don’t let them see you.’

  He raised both palms towards her. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll have an escape route planned. And my assistants – he waved a hand in the direction of the boys outside – will be on the look-out. We’ve done this sort of thing before.’

  She was astonished. ‘When? Who else have you been taking pictures of?’

  ‘Wives,’ he said succinctly. ‘Most husbands these days know not to ask where their food and fuel come from. But there’s still some stupid enough not to make the connection. They think their wives are being unfaithful for the fun of it.’ He shook his head, as if the antics of the adult world were too strange to credit. ‘These days I’m more like a private detective than a photographer.’

  Effi had to smile. ‘So how much is this going to cost me?’

  He considered. ‘Given who the mark is, I’d almost do it for free. But I am running a business, and there are my “irregulars” to consider…’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘The boys outside. Haven’t you read Sherlock Holmes?’

  ‘Never.’ John’s son Paul had tried to persuade her, but all she’d read in those days were scripts.

  He tutted his disapproval, but otherwise let her failing pass. ‘A pack for every face I capture?’ he suggested, lingering almost lovingly on the final word.

  ‘Okay,’ Effi agreed. She had no idea whether that was a good deal, but was sure she could find more cigarettes from somewhere. And she didn’t think he would cheat her.

  She started to give him directions, but he interrupted her: ‘I know where the Honey Trap is. Will you come here to see the pictures, or do you want them delivered?’

  ‘Deliver them, if you can. I live in Dahlem, and I rarely get enough time off work to travel this far.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m an actress.’

  He looked impressed. ‘Should I have recognised your name?’

  ‘Not these days,
’ she said. And not at your age, she thought.

  ‘Do you have a telephone that works?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ She gave him the number and the Dahlem address. ‘You can talk to me, John Russell or Thomas Schade – no one else. Okay?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll be in touch when I have something to show you.’

  She was halfway to the door when another idea came to her. ‘Your “irregulars” – do you ever use them to follow erring wives?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Well some of the men leaving by the rear exit might go off on foot. I’d throw in another pack of cigarettes for each address that goes with a face.’

  * * *

  In the morning their one-coach train wheezed its way up through the snow-strewn foothills, arriving in Náchod soon after nine. The small town seemed unmarked by the war, but appearances were clearly deceptive – according to Albert, only twenty of its three hundred Jews had survived. And it was two of these – Moshe Rosman and Yehuda Lippmann – who had turned Náchod into a staging post for the Jews now fleeing Poland.

  Both had been prominent businessmen before the Nazi takeover, and unlike most of their Polish counterparts had experienced little difficulty recovering their assets once the Germans were gone. Rosman’s oak-panelled office near the station certainly seemed of long standing, and it was hard to believe that the man behind the desk had recently been in Auschwitz. Once Albert had introduced Russell, and told Rosman what his friend was writing, the Czech insisted they both have lunch with him and Lippmann.

  Leaving Albert to conduct his Haganah business, Russell worked his way down the short list that Rosman had given him, of individuals and families who took in transient Jews. None had any that day, but more were expected soon, and no one seemed put out by the prospect. They weren’t doing anything special, one woman told him – just providing food and lodging for a few nights.

  At lunch he and Albert heard the full story from Rosman and Lippmann. Both seemed around forty, but were probably younger. Rosman’s parents and only sibling had died in Auschwitz, as had Lippmann’s wife, child and sisters. Soon after their return to Náchod a nearby camp had been liberated by the Russians, and they had done their best to feed and shelter the several hundred emaciated women who suddenly appeared on their doorsteps. They had approached their non-Jewish neighbours for help, and been almost overwhelmed by the response.

  At first the townspeople were helping Jews find their way back to Poland, but since the summer the flow had reversed. Most returnees had searched in vain for the families left behind, and many had been given a hostile reception. The new Polish government had said all the right things, but fresh outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence were becoming an almost weekly occurrence, and those Jews that could had decided to cut their losses. They might have a future in Palestine or America, but none seemed on offer in Poland, and now several thousand were leaving each month. A figure likely to rise and rise over the coming year.

  Russell asked Rosman and Lippmann how the government in Prague viewed their efforts.

  ‘Oh, they seem to have realised that something not quite legal is going on,’ Lippmann said. ‘The police even arrested one man for sheltering an illegal immigrant. But there was an outcry straight away – everyone here supports us. I mean, it’s not as if the Jews are planning to stay, either here or anywhere else in our country – we’re just helping them get where they want to go. How could anyone in Prague object to that?’

  How indeed, Russell asked himself that evening. He, Albert, Lippmann and around a dozen other locals were sharing a convivial time in one of the town’s inns, and looking round the faces, Russell thought he detected an absence of the fear and resentment that still haunted most of Europe. Maybe he was imagining things, but Náchod seemed proof of the old adage that doing good was good for the doer.

  * * *

  Thursday was cold and clear, the line of mountains that marked the border stretching far into the distance. Jews travelling south were usually led along unwatched paths by friendly guides, but Russell and Albert had only to walk down the road and present their papers at the Czech and Polish frontier posts. They were soon parting company, and Albert was full of messages for his family in London, should Russell see them first. He also invited Russell and Effi to Palestine: ‘Come and see what we’re doing. It’s not often you see a country built from scratch.’

  Russell asked if he had any plans to visit England.

  ‘If my letters won’t persuade my family to join me, then I may have to do it in person. But not for a few years, I expect. Only when we have our homeland.’

  They said their goodbyes in the small village just beyond the Polish frontier post, Albert walking off to see the local Haganah organiser, Russell engaging a decrepit-looking taxi to take him down to Glatz, or Kłodzko as the Poles had re-named it. He felt immensely pleased that his and Albert’s paths had crossed again, and looked forward to telling Eva, Marthe and Ruth what an impressive young man their son and brother had become.

  In Glatz he found a bank that was willing to sell him Polish currency for dollars. At the station he discovered that trains were still running to Breslau, or Wrocław as the ticket-seller testily insisted. And yes, the next one stopped at the former Wartha, or whatever he called it. He purchased a through ticket and walked out to the waiting carriages, which were German with Polish markings. A locomotive was huffing its way backwards to join them.

  Soon they were off, and hurrying down the valley. Wartha Station looked unchanged, save for the Polish flag and stationmaster. There was even a Polish taxi, and with no little help from the stationmaster, Russell managed to explain his hoped-for destination. On his first visit here he had walked the six kilometres there and back, and the taxi ride seemed almost insultingly brief.

  They stopped first at the neighbouring farm, which Torsten’s parents had owned. They had once been friends of the Rosenfelds, but fear and the local Nazis had put an end to that. And now it was a Polish woman who answered the door, suspicious and slightly aggressive. ‘Zniknął,’ she said several times. Gone. When Russell tried to asked her where, she shut the door in his face.

  They drove on down the lane to the Rosenfeld farm. In September 1939 both house and barn had been blackened shells, but the house had at least had been partly rebuilt, and smoke was rising from a hole in the ramshackle roof.

  The reception there was just as hostile. He wasn’t at all sure that the man understood his questions, but there was no mistaking the answer. ‘Polska,’ the man said, encompassing the landscape with sweeping waves of his arms, one hand to the right, the other to the left. ‘Polska,’ he repeated angrily when Russell tried to speak. ‘Polska.’

  He too slammed the door in his visitor’s face.

  Back at the station he read the chalked-up times and groaned – there were almost two hours to wait. After a while the stationmaster took pity on him, opening up the waiting room and even starting a fire in the small grate. A few shared smiles was the best they could manage when it came to communication, but by the time the train arrived the official had done more than he knew to salvage his nation’s reputation.

  The land seemed emptier than the last time Russell had made this journey, the fields more neglected, the skies clear of smoke. If the Germans had all been driven out, not enough Poles had arrived to replace them.

  As the train approached Breslau the residue of war grew commonplace – gapped rows of houses, the shattered trees and craters strewn across the fields, a cemetery of scorched and mangled rolling stock where the marshalling yard had been. The station was a functioning wreck, the city itself looked a lot like Berlin – the parallel lines of empty facades stretching north towards the Oder, and probably beyond. He should have known what to expect. Breslau, like all of Hitler’s so-called ‘fortress cities’, had been promised eternal glory if it fought to the very last German. Refusal had not been an option.

  And the Poles were inheriting the ruins. Their uniforms were everywhere,
mingling with those of their Russian liberators. Too much history there, but appearances would be maintained, probably for decades. The men now ruling Poland were no less in thrall to the Soviets than Ulbricht and his gang. They’d all shared digs in Moscow, all learned to toe the collective line. National feelings would be repressed, at least for the conceivable future. The Moscow Poles would give great chunks of their country to the Russians, and the Moscow Germans would compensate the Poles with great chunks of theirs. All smiling as they did so. What their people felt was neither here nor there.

  The only vehicle in the station forecourt was a horse-drawn cart piled high with scavenged bricks. No fire was visibly burning, no smoke curling up to the sky, but a faint smell of scorching hung in the air, reminding him of Berlin in the last days of the war. He started walking towards the city centre, down what he guessed was the old Taschenstrasse. The name itself had been whitewashed out, and replaced by something Polish.

  As he crossed the old moat on a makeshift footbridge he began to wonder whether anything survived in the centre. The streets seemed desolate, particularly for the middle of the day. Whatever municipal offices there were – Russian, Polish, even German – must be out in the less damaged suburbs.

  He turned left towards the Ring, and found himself walking toward a group of young men in uniform. They were Poles, he realised – some sort of militia. One held up a hand to stop him, while the others all looked at his suitcase.

  The leader barked something incomprehensible in Polish.

  Russell was about to ask if they spoke German, when he realised how mistaken that might be. ‘Speak American?’ he asked, with what he hoped was a winning smile.

  This had them glancing at each other, uncertain how to proceed. Was the suitcase still fair game?

  Disinclined to lose his notes, let alone his cigarettes and post-war wardrobe, Russell pushed his advantage. ‘Do you speak Russian?’ he asked in that language.

  ‘A little,’ the leader admitted.

  ‘I’m looking for the Russian administrative headquarters. NKVD,’ he added, enunciating each letter with a hint of relish.