Lehrter Station jr-5

by David Downing

Russell’s train left the Sudbahnhof at ten past eight on Wednesday morning, and was soon rattling out through the Viennese suburbs. There had been no message waiting for him when he returned, somewhat the worse for wear, from his evening with Slaney, and none when he woke up, feeling very little better, on the following day. He had spent Tuesday morning vainly checking Vienna’s DP camps and Red Cross offices for any trace of Otto or Miriam, the afternoon sauntering around the city, wondering how long he’d be stuck there. It might be a great story, but he wouldn’t be back before Christmas at this rate, and no matter how often he reminded himself that Effi was well capable of looking after herself, the anxiety persisted. The trip in the Mercedes boot was still fresh in his mind.

  Then a message had finally arrived, asking him to come to the Rothschild. There was a group crossing the border on Thursday or Friday, Mizrachi told him when he reached the hospital. If Russell took the morning train, he should reach Villach in plenty of time.

  So here he was, staring out across the sun-washed Austrian countryside, the sky only smudged by the smoke from their engine. The landscape grew more mountainous by the minute, and after almost two hours they reached the small town of Semmering, which lay astride the Russo-British zonal border. There was no through service, and those passengers heading further east had to walk three kilometres to the British-sponsored train. There were plenty of soldiers in evidence from both armies, but none seemed keen to spoil their day with work, and only a few travellers’ papers were subject to a cursory examination.

  The new train puffed its way down the Murz valley, as the outflung eastern arm of the Alps grew larger in the window. It was almost 250 kilometres from Semmering to Villach, and the scenery was mostly magnificent — the train leaping across torrents and delving through dark forests, skirting pellucid lakes and offering glimpses of distant snow-covered peaks shining in the afternoon sunlight. The towns they stopped in looked untouched by war, but Russell knew that wasn’t the case — each would be mourning its quota of men lost on Hitler’s battlefields.

  Darkness was falling when the train pulled in to Villach. He had bought bread and sausage at one of the stops, but that seemed a long time ago, and an unofficial refugee camp seemed an unlikely place to find a decent dinner. Villach, it turned out, was not that much better, but he did find a reasonable bowl of soup in one of the bars near the station. Suitably fortified, he laid claim to the only apparent taxi and quoted the address that Mizrachi had written. It was only a street and number, but the driver wasn’t fooled. ‘Where the Jews are,’ he said, with only the slightest hint of distaste.

  So much for secret camps, Russell thought.

  In the event, it wasn’t so much a camp as a mansion, a large and rambling house with several outbuildings, set quite a way back from the road leading south, right on the edge of town.

  On first impression it felt like a school — the house seemed full of children. ‘They’re mostly orphans,’ his Haganah host explained a few minutes later. His name was Mosher Lidovsky, and like Mizrachi he spoke perfect English. Before perishing in the death camps, a large number of Polish Jews had entrusted their children to Catholic friends, and since the war ended the Haganah had been systematically reclaiming them, and moving them out of Poland. As he looked round the faces, Russell noticed a shortage of smiles.

  ‘Naturally some of the children grew attached to their new parents,’ Lidovsky answered the unvoiced question. ‘But they are Jews. There is no place in Poland for them. Not now.’

  Russell changed the subject. ‘Is the group still leaving tomorrow or Friday?’

  ‘At midnight tomorrow. The British patrol the road by day, which is unfortunate — it is harder at night with so many children. But it is only twenty-five miles.’

  ‘Aren’t we driving all the way?’

  ‘Most of it. We have to walk round one checkpoint, which takes a couple of hours. We’ll be there before dawn. Now, I have things to do. If you have any more questions, ask me tomorrow. You’ll sleep in the men’s dormitory — anyone will show you where it is — and there’s soup in the kitchen.’

  ‘Fine,’ Russell said. ‘Go.’

  ‘You can talk to anyone you like, but no real names, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Lidovsky hurried away, leaving Russell wondering how to spend the evening. He had all the following day to interview the travellers, but this would probably be his last opportunity to meet their would-be interceptors. He found the dormitory, parked his bag on an empty cot, and walked back into Villach.

  A bar on the Hauptplatz provided what he wanted — a group of slightly drunken British soldiers. He bought them a round with his US dollars, told them he was a journalist writing a series of articles on how the top brass treated the common soldier, and settled back to hear their complaints.

  The war was over and they wanted to go home. The Germans and Austrians were on their knees — anyone could see that. So why not leave them there?

  The Jews? They were a bloody nuisance. You couldn’t really blame the poor buggers, but the soldiers had better things to do than chase them all over Europe.

  ‘It was like that at the concentration camp,’ one man with a Yorkshire accent said. ‘We liberated the camp, but we couldn’t let the Jews just leave. We had to keep them there to help them — there was nowhere else. Now they’re haring all over the place, and we have to round them up again. It’s a pain in the arse.’

  ‘What do you do when you catch them?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Just take them back where they came from.’

  ‘And a few days later they’re off again,’ a Welsh boy complained.

  ‘It’s a fucking waste of time,’ the Yorkshireman concluded, to general murmurs of agreement.

  Effi was ten minutes late reaching the hospital, and Annaliese’s face seemed to sag with relief when she saw her. ‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ she said, as they walked back down to the entrance. Their jeep was parked in the old ambulance bay, amidst the makeshift collection of horse-drawn carts now used to bring in emergency patients. Effi was pleased to see the canvas roof — since the cloud disappeared that afternoon the temperature had dropped precipitously.

  Annaliese rammed the canvas holdall under Effi’s seat and plonked herself in the other. She was also wearing a long coat, hat and boots — they looked, Effi thought, like two flappers from the Twenties. ‘How much money is there?’ she asked Annaliese.

  ‘Three thousand US dollars.’

  ‘My God, that’s a fortune.’

  ‘Yes.’ Annaliese produced one of her schoolgirl grins. ‘Shall we just head for the border?’

  They pulled out onto Potsdamer Strasse and headed south.

  ‘Where exactly are we going?’ Effi asked at the first opportunity, when a stopping tram blocked the single lane.

  ‘Just off Goerzallee,’ Annaliese told her. ‘When it turns sharply right we just keep going for a few hundred metres down a dead-end street. It’s about twelve kilometres altogether,’ she added. ‘Half an hour there, half an hour back.’

  They motored on through Schoneberg, Potsdamer Strasse turning into Hauptstrasse, Hauptstrasse into Rheinstrasse. A single lane had been cleared in each direction, and more stationary trams were all that slowed their progress. Annaliese kept the jeep moving at a steady thirty — anything faster and the cold wind would have been unbearable.

  The further south they got, the higher the proportion of surviving buildings, the lower the ridges of rubble. But the lights grew no brighter — the suburbs were dim as the centre, as if the city had only one battery, and that was nearing exhaustion. Almost all the people they saw were congregated around a few bars and places of entertainment — American soldiers and German girls enjoying varying degrees of drunkenness and physical togetherness. The girls’ mothers and grandparents were seemingly sequestered in their homes, eking out their meagre rations and trying to stay warm on a few bits of wood, while their daughters bought in extra food and fuel with what had on
ce been considered their virtue.

  In Steglitz centre they turned left onto the Hindenburgdamm. A drunken melee was underway beneath the railway bridge, but a quarter-moon hung above the straight and empty road ahead. If it hadn’t been so cold, it might have been an evening to treasure. Effi pulled the coat tighter around her, and narrowed the gap between hat and collar.

  The street lights became sparser, and when the Hindenburgdamm segued into Goerzallee they disappeared altogether. Annaliese slowed the jeep down and followed the headlights into the suburban murk. A few minutes later they came to the sought-after junction, Goerzallee heading off to the right, a smaller road running straight on. Annaliese pulled the jeep to a halt and they both peered forward, down what seemed a factory-lined cul-de-sac.

  ‘It doesn’t look very inviting,’ Annaliese said, almost indignantly.

  ‘No,’ Effi agreed. ‘How long have we got?’

  ‘Almost ten minutes. I think I’ll drive in and turn round. I’d rather be facing out than in.’

  She drove the jeep slowly down between the factory facades, finally emerging in a wide open cobbled space at the head of a long canal basin. A bomb-broken line of factories extended along the northern bank, dimly lit by the sinking quarter-moon. The wind-rippled water lapped against the exposed belly of a half-sunken barge.

  Annaliese turned the jeep and brought it to a halt. She left the headlights on for a few seconds, the twin beams vainly searching the road ahead, then thought better of the idea. Staring out along the darkened road Effi had a mental image of cars lined up at the end of the AVUS Speedway, waiting for the starting gun.

  Which reminded her of the one in her pocket. She gingerly took it out, and saw the surprise on Annaliese’s face. ‘Just in case,’ she said, placing it down between her feet.

  ‘Maybe we really should rob them,’ Annaliese suggested.

  ‘They’d know where to find us.’

  ‘True.’

  Two headlights were approaching in the distance, but they eventually swung away.

  ‘How’s your love life?’ Effi asked Annaliese.

  ‘What love life?’

  A luminescent beam filled the intersection, and then two more headlights appeared, turning towards them. Soon they could hear the rumble of a lorry engine above the purr of their idling jeep.

  Annaliese flicked their lights off and on again. The lorry slowed to a halt some twenty metres in front of them. If the driver wanted to block their escape he had failed — the street was too wide, and there was still enough space for the jeep to squeeze past.

  There were two men in the cab, the driver already opening his door, the other man shielding his eyes with a raised hand.

  ‘Turn your lights off,’ the driver shouted as his feet hit the ground. His German was perfect, but the accent suggested another origin. Polish, Effi thought. He didn’t sound Russian.

  ‘After you,’ Annaliese shouted back with her customary combativeness.

  He hesitated for a second, then reached an arm back into the cab to douse the lorry’s headlights. The other man instantly raised his hands to shield his face, and it crossed Effi’s mind that he feared recognition.

  Darkness ensued when Annaliese turned off the jeep’s headlights, but only for a second — the lorry driver was now waving a torch in their direction. ‘Women!’ he exclaimed, as if he couldn’t believe it.

  Annaliese clicked on her own torch, and shone it straight back at him. In the cab the hands shot up again, but not quite fast enough. The face was familiar, Effi thought.

  ‘We’re nurses,’ Annaliese told the driver, in a tone that suggested it should have been obvious. Still shining the torch straight at him, she got out of the jeep. ‘Shall we point these at the ground?’

  He followed her lead. ‘Doctors scared of the dark, are they?’ He was young, not much more than twenty.

  ‘Something like that. Where are the medicines?’

  ‘Where’s the money?’

  Annaliese pulled the bag out from under her seat and set it down on the bonnet.

  He started forward.

  ‘The medicines first,’ Annaliese insisted, laying a protective arm across the bag.

  He hesitated for a moment, and Effi reached down a hand for the gun. The butt was cold to the touch, and she had the strange sense of time standing still. Could she shoot him?

  She probably could.

  She didn’t have to. He laughed, turned and walked to the rear of his lorry. They heard the door latch clank open, and a few moments later he was on his way back with two large cardboard boxes piled up in his arms.

  ‘Put them in the back,’ Annaliese told him, stepping back a few paces to keep a safe distance. Effi, still grasping the gun, kept one eye on the driver, one on the shadowy figure in the cab.

  He placed them on one of the back seats.

  ‘How many are there?’ Annaliese asked.

  ‘Six. Another four.’

  ‘Does that sound right?’ Effi asked softly as he went for more.

  ‘More or less.’ Annaliese was opening the uppermost box with a fearsome-looking pocket knife, then shining her torch at the contents. ‘It looks all right,’ she muttered.

  The driver returned with two more, and placed them on the other seat. ‘You don’t need to check them,’ he said indignantly, as if his integrity as a black marketeer had been called into question.

  He collected the last two boxes, and wedged them between the others. He ran his torch up Annaliese, starting with the boots and ending with the blonde curls peeking out from under her hat. ‘Maybe next time we can combine business with pleasure.’

  ‘In your dreams,’ Annaliese told him contemptuously.

  Effi’s grip tightened on the gun, but the man just laughed. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, sweeping up the bag and turning away.

  Annaliese got in, handed Effi the torch, and turned the headlights back on. As Effi had expected, the man in the cab was ready, his face well covered. But would he lower his guard once the headlights had swung past? As Annaliese aimed the laden jeep through the gap between lorry and factory wall, Effi aimed the torch at the lorry’s cab and took her masking hand from the beam. She was treated to a close-up of a furious face, and a clear recollection of where she’d seen it before.

  ‘It was towards the end of 1943,’ she told Thomas. They were alone in the kitchen, the rest of the house having long gone to bed. The Russian bus would be picking her up in about five hours, but after all the evening’s excitement she felt far too restless to sleep. ‘I collected a Jewish boy from a house in Neukolln — Erik had told me the boy was fourteen, but if so he was big for his age. He was going to stay with us at Bismarckstrasse for a few days while Erik arranged his exit from Berlin. I was carrying the forged papers of an imaginary nephew in case we were stopped on the U-Bahn. I used those papers whenever I had a young man to move.

  ‘Anyway, the boy was nervous. More than nervous — he seemed almost hysterical, in a quiet sort of way. He’d been living in a room not much bigger than a cupboard for almost a year, and he’d lost all his family and friends, so I wasn’t surprised to find him in bad shape. But I didn’t realise how bad until it was too late.’

  ‘What was his name?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘Mannie,’ she said after a moment’s reflection. ‘I don’t think I was ever told the family name.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘On the walk to the U-Bahn station he kept looking round to see if anyone was following us, and I had to tell him he was making us both conspicuous. That seemed to calm him down, and once we reached the station he managed to sit and wait without drawing attention to himself. He insisted on sitting several seats away from me once we boarded the train, so I wouldn’t be implicated if anyone recognised him. He had this horror of running into one of his old non-Jewish schoolmates, and being denounced.

  ‘So we travelled a few seats apart, me reading a paper, him staring rigidly into space. And after we changed at Stadtmitte he kept the same dist
ance on the second train, still looking like a frightened rabbit.

  ‘The Gestapo got on at Potsdamer Platz. Four of them, two through each end door. All in their stupid leather coats. I turned to give the boy a reassuring look — it was only a routine check, and our papers were as good as they got — but it was too late. He was already halfway through the doors.

  ‘And once he was out he had nowhere to go. He just jerked his head this way and that as the four of them closed in.’ Effi shook her own head in sympathy. ‘And then he just threw himself at one of them. Like I said, he was a big boy. The man went down with the boy half on top of him, and a gun skidded across the platform.

  ‘The boy looked at it. We could all see him — the train was still standing there with its doors open. He looked at the gun. He didn’t even reach out a hand, but you could see him thinking about it.

  ‘And then one of the Gestapo shot him. Not just once, but four times, and the boy just slumped down on his side. One of them knelt down beside him and went through his pockets, and I was sitting there thanking God that I’d kept his papers with my own. The other three just stood around making small-talk.

  ‘The one who did the shooting was smiling as he reloaded his gun. He was the man I saw tonight.’

  Leon and Esther

  Russell watched as the two open lorries were loaded, around twenty people to each. A dozen of them were children, and all but one had left Poland as orphans. All had since been adopted, temporarily at least, by one or more of the adults. Russell had spoken to most of the latter that day, sometimes alone, sometimes with Lidovsky acting as an interpreter. They had all impressed him with their singularity of purpose, some more than others with their outlook on the world. Their Palestine would not lack for solidarity, but it might have trouble loving its neighbour.

  The quarter-moon lighting the scene was the reason for their early departure. It was due to set soon after midnight, and without it, as Lidovsky explained, the obligatory detour through the forest would be very dark.