The German Suitcase

by Dinallo, Greg

  Max forced a smile. “Major Steig—Captain Kruger,” he said, introducing them.

  “Kruger…ah yes, I recognize you from your file,” Steig said, sending Kruger’s heart rate soaring. “By the way, Kleist,” he added, as if it was an afterthought. “Your parents send their regards, as does your sister. A most beautiful young woman. Anika, isn’t it?”

  Max’s heart rate exceeded Kruger’s, now. All the unnerving reasons why Steig might have been in contact with his family raced through his mind. He forced a smile and casually lit his cigarette to cover his anxiety. “Thank you, Sir. As you know, communications have broken down. We’ve been out of touch since I reported here.”

  Steig dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “All in the line of duty. It seems the Reichsführer learned there was a Jewess in their employ. She’s here somewhere, now, I imagine.” He sat at the table opposite Max, and frowned with uncertainty. “Or was it Auschwitz? Anyway, the next time I see your parents, I’ll let them know you’re well.”

  Max stiffened at the shocking news. He couldn’t believe Tovah—sweet, gentle, beloved Tovah—had been taken from his family’s home. From her home! And sent to a death camp. He exhaled a stream of smoke, fighting to keep his composure. “I’d appreciate that, Sir.”

  Steig had the advantage, now, and pressed it. “The Reichsführer was quite upset by Lieutenant Radek’s accident.”

  “We all were, Sir. I’m told it was horrible.”

  Steig’s eyes narrowed. “I’m told you and Lieutenant Radek didn’t get along.”

  “We had our differences,” Max said, evenly.

  “Yes, but there was one thing you had in common. Wasn’t there?”

  “I can think of several,” Max replied, somehow able to feign aplomb. “We were both physicians, both SS officers, and we both worked the ramp.”

  “I was referring to your mutual disregard for the Nuremberg Laws,” the Major said, eyeing an attractive waitress serving drinks at a table, nearby.

  “I wouldn’t know, Major,” Max said, stealing a look at Kruger whose eyes were blank. “As I said Lieutenant Radek and I weren’t close.”

  “Well, I suspect his appetite for Jewish women was his fatal flaw,” Steig said, pointedly. “Speaking of Jews, I’m afraid your friend Epstein was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. I offered him an alternative but he refused to cooperate. It probably cost him his life.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Max said, evenly. If Steig didn’t know Jake had survived and been transferred to Dachau, Max certainly wasn’t going to tell him. “He was always strongly principled.”

  “I imagine you’ll be pleased to hear your other friend, Fraulein Rosenberg, escaped.”

  “Well, you can’t win them all, Major,” Max said, suppressing his elation.

  “No, but I will win this one,” Steig said with a sly smile. “She’s still being hunted. It’s just a matter of time. I’ll be sure to let you know when I have her in custody.” The major got to his feet, and placed a folded sheet of paper on the table in front of Max. “Like your sister, a very beautiful young woman. I’m sure Lieutenant Radek would’ve found Eva Sarah Rosenberg intriguing.”

  Max watched as Steig led his entourage from the Club, then lifted the sheet of paper and unfolded it. The heading read: FUGITIVE ALERT. Eva’s medical school photo was centered beneath it, her fetching smile beckoning.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Adam’s question had left the group gathered around Jake in stunned silence. They stood unmoving amidst the blaring music and chattering crowd, the launch party swirling around them.

  Stacey was rocked. She couldn’t believe what she had heard, and winced as if she’d been stabbed. Inside she was screaming, For Chrissakes, Clive! What are you thinking?! Her eyes burned into Adam’s like lasers cutting steel.

  His eyes were cool and focused.

  Steinbach’s were panicked.

  Dan’s were puzzled and pained.

  Hannah’s were characteristically steady.

  Jake’s were blinking in confusion. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said in his soft accent. “Are you saying the snapshot and tattoo aren’t the same number?”

  “No, no I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear,” Adam replied. “The number’s the same but the handwriting is different.”

  “Are you sure?” Jake prompted, looking baffled. “I mean, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Positive. I don’t have a copy of the snapshot with me but there’s probably one around here somewhere. Stace?”

  Stacey’s heart had plummeted along with her spirits. Her enthusiasm had prompted the old fellow to tell a perfectly harmless story, thereby unleashing a demon she, and others, thought had been engaged and forever vanquished. She was dumbstruck by what she had just done, if unintentionally; but now that the glaring incongruity had been resurrected, she, too, saw it with frightening clarity—and it unnerved her. “Somewhere. I guess,” she replied, her voice quavering. “I mean, I could try to find one. I could access it on my computer, but—”

  “Don’t bother,” Dan Epstein said with finality, shifting his look to Adam. “Bring one with you on Friday, if you like. Come on, Dad. There are some people here who are anxious to meet you.”

  “Wait. I want to answer his question,” Jake said, standing his ground and engaging Adam’s uncertain eyes. “No. No, I can’t say I ever noticed the writing was different. Nor can I explain it. There must be some mistake.” Jake sipped from his glass and cocked his head in reflection. “As I said, I put my arm on the table and…and Max took a picture of it. Of my arm. This arm!” Jake raised it overhead then, pointing to one of the print ads, exclaimed, “That arm!” He chuckled at a thought and added, “Despite my legendary accomplishments in the field of prosthetics, I assure you it’s the same one I had then.”

  “Well, if anyone should know, it would be you!” Adam said, unable to keep from laughing. “It’s just been frustrating. I mean, there aren’t any names written on the back…the faces are blurred beyond recognition…you couldn’t tell the men from the women if it weren’t for the little triangles…”

  Jake nodded in empathy and shrugged. “After all these years, I can’t even remember how I came to have them. I’m sorry. I guess Max had the film processed and…and you know…sixty years later they turned up in my suitcase.” He paused, broke into an impish smile and, said, “…in my vintage Steinbach!” A ripple of relieved laughter ran through the crowd. When it had subsided, Jake shrugged again, and concluded, “I guess we just didn’t have the time or, in the end, the need to make notations on them. I mean, once we knew the GIs were coming…” He splayed his hands, suggesting the rest was obvious. “You know, Max promised I’d survive; even after I’d contracted typhus. I refused to admit I had it; but he knew, and, somehow, he got me penicillin even though there was none to be had. I still don’t know how he did it. You have to understand, if you were a prisoner, surviving became an obsession. Nothing else mattered. Unfortunately, in the end, it was poor Max who didn’t.”

  Hannah touched his arm, comfortingly, and brushed away a tear that rolled down her cheek.

  “A senseless tragedy,” Jake whispered, sadly, continuing to reminisce. “At the time, everyone was so excited by the news that the camp was going to be liberated. You can’t imagine how it felt when we realized we were going to survive, that we were going to return to our families, to our communities and lives. We had been condemned to death one minute and given a new lease on life the next! Thirty-two thousand sick and starving prisoners crying, cheering, screaming with delight at the prospect of being fed and given medical attention. As for Max, well, he was—” The old fellow paused, overwhelmed by the memory. He took a sip of prosecco and was collecting himself when he sensed the quiet and realized the crowd around him had grown much larger and was hanging on his every word. Evidently, many of the partygoers, Tannen, Celine, Ellen and the Gunthers among them, had sensed something special in the air and gravitated toward him. Jake took a de
ep breath, then another sip from his glass, and tilted his head as if trying to recall something. “Now, where was I?”

  Hannah leaned closer and whispered, “Max.”

  “Ah yes, Max. Max was so elated,” Jake went on, caught up in the reverie. “He kept talking about Eva. Eva Rosenberg. I believe I mentioned her. They were madly in love with each other; and since there was a good chance she had made it safely to Venice…her family lived in the ghetto, there…he kept talking about going to find her. Of course, we talked about being doctors again; about healing the sick, and getting back to our research and working on the prosthetics we’d been developing together. I’ll never forget the moment when the Americans marched through the main gate. It was just so…so incredible. I…I can’t tell you the feeling that came over us. There we were, me in my ragged striped prison uniform, Max in his black SS uniform with the death head on the cap, crying and hugging each other, and then…then…” Jake began choking up. He paused, barely able to continue. “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes glistening with emotion. He glanced to Hannah who leaned to him supportively, then took a deep breath and said, “And then, a terrible thing happened.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  A bone-warming sun greeted Catholic Bavaria as it awakened to celebrate the risen Christ. Max’s thoughts were of the family chapel where his parents and sister would be attending Mass. He’d have given anything to have spent the day with them. He spent it on the ramp, instead, processing a trainload of Jewish prisoners that had been transferred from Bergen-Belsen. They had suffered the most horrifying of Nazi atrocities, and were the last prisoners Himmler wanted in the hands of the Allies.

  About a week later, Max and Kruger were in the Officer’s Club numbing their senses after yet another day on the ramp when the wail of sirens and whistle of falling bombs sent everyone running for cover. The camp had been added to the Allies target list and its water main and power house were completely destroyed. Without water for drinking, cooking, showering and toilet flushing, Colonel Weiter was forced to deploy caravans of tanker trucks to fetch and distribute it throughout the camp, daily. In the weeks that followed, Max and Kruger made a habit of commandeering tankers which they drove into the prison compound making certain the Revier was well-supplied.

  It was during this time, on Friday, April 13th, the world learned of the death of President Roosevelt. Though cheered by the news, Himmler was shaken by reports that American troops were advancing on Dachau. He panicked and ordered all 32,000 prisoners be evacuated or executed. Colonel Weiter was frantic. There weren’t enough trucks or boxcars in all of Bavaria. Besides, every roadway and rail spur had been hit by Allied airstrikes. Death marches? Many prisoners could barely stand let alone walk. Mass executions? Even the vaunted German killing machine wasn’t up to the task now.

  In desperation, Himmler ordered that the Jewish prisoners who had just come from Bergen-Belsen be evacuated to a subcamp in Austria. Weiter resigned his commission and accompanied them. A previous commandant, Martin Weiss, was put in charge. It took him just two days to see the wisdom of Weiter’s decision; and when a convoy evacuating hundreds of high-profile political prisoners departed, Weiss joined it. Among them: former Chancellor of Austria Kurt von Schuschnigg, former Jewish Premier of France Leon Blum, and Rev. Martin Niemöller, a Protestant minister convicted of treason for anti-Nazi sermons. An inexperienced 2nd Lieutenant was left in charge of the entire SS installation. His name was Henrich Wicker.

  The next day, KZ-Dachau was liberated by two combat units of the U.S Seventh Army. Operating independently, they had advanced on their objective from different directions. One came upon the entrance to the SS Garrison, the other upon the entrance to the concentration camp. As a result, their commanders formed two totally different impressions of Dachau, and initiated two totally different courses of action.

  Around midday, General Henning Linden, commander of the 42nd Rainbow Division, came down the Avenue of the SS in his jeep to where Lt. Wicker was waiting at the main entrance to the SS Garrison. Its stately houses, picket fences, movie theater, canteen, post office, and barracks with landscaped courtyards sure didn’t look like the atrocity-riddled death camp the general had heard about. Indeed, the outstretched wings of the Imperial Eagle above the entrance, seemed to be welcoming its liberator; and with his travelling companion, an attractive blonde who just happened to be an aggressive reporter, at his side, General Linden engaged in the pomp and circumstance of an official surrender ceremony.

  However, a few hours earlier, advancing from the opposite direction, Colonel Felix Sparks of the 45th Thunderbird Division, accompanied by troops of I-Company, arrived at the entrance to the Prison Camp, coming face-to-face with its stomach-turning horrors. Sparks had two immediate concerns. First: Contain the typhus epidemic. Though every GI had been vaccinated, he ordered his men not to enter the prison until DDT could be obtained. Second: Contain the 32,000 prisoners—a sick, hungry and angry mix of Jews, anti-Nazi Protestants and Catholics, political prisoners, and resistance fighters—who presented a threat of mass rioting. To that end, Sparks had the entire contents of the SS food warehouse delivered to the prison compound. With luck, the prisoners would remain calm until more troops could be brought in to control them.

  But it was the Americans who lost control first. During their advance, Colonel Sparks and the troops of I-Company had come upon, what they named, the Death Train. The long line of flatcars and gondolas had been abandoned on the tracks that led to the prison. Thousands of decomposing, half-naked bodies spilled from the railcars. The stomach-turning sight unnerved the GIs whose outrage was fueled by other atrocities they encountered: The piles of corpses outside the crematoria and burning pits. The twisted bodies of prisoners who had been beaten to death. The skulls of children smashed by rifle butts. The skeleton-like faces of prisoners pressed to the fences, begging for water, food, and medical attention. The moaning typhus victims inside the Revier; and the gagging stench of death that hung in the air.

  Gripped by a murderous rage, some GIs from I-Company began to massacre the SS troops defending the prison. Those in bunkers were overrun and given no chance to surrender. Those in guard towers, despite white flags flying from the turrets, were cut down as they emerged from ground level entrances. Many were unarmed and had their hands raised. A few fired weapons. Most were shot on sight.

  The news that the Americans had arrived heartened the prisoners. Some became emboldened. Armed with steel pipes and wooden clubs that moments before had been the legs of tables and chairs, they went on a vengeful rampage. SS guards who had brutalized and tortured them were beaten to death; then, armed with weapons confiscated from their victims, the prisoners began executing anyone in a German uniform. Guard dogs were shot in their kennels.

  Max and Kruger were inside the prison compound delivering water to the Revier and were unaware of the chaos. After hooking up the tanker’s hose to the storage tank, Max went inside to check on his patients. Kruger remained with the truck to monitor the pumping operation. He was checking the tank’s water level when a mob of marauding prisoners spotted his SS uniform and came at him with their clubs.

  In the meantime, other squads from I-Company, that had maintained military discipline, were rousting SS guards and officers from hiding places. The captured Germans were made to stand along a concrete wall with their hands atop their heads. A sergeant, manning a machinegun on a tripod, was in charge of the squad guarding them. Shocked and angered by the horrors they had seen, the GIs stood glaring at their captives. One of them was a young SS officer with a crisp uniform and a self-assured air which proved contagious and spread down the line of ragtag enlisted men that now numbered several dozen. Their slackened postures became more erect. Their frightened eyes engaged those of their captors. Their downturned mouths rose in cocky smirks. The unnerved GIs began taunting the ‘fucking Krauts’ who seemed to be enjoying their discomfort. Expletives and threats were exchanged. One of the GIs muttered, “Bastards…we should kill
’em, all.” Another overheard, and shouted, “Yeah, kill ’em all!” Others echoed the call that built into a rhythmic chant. “Kill ’em all! Kill ’em all!”

  That’s when it happened. When the Sergeant manning the tripod-mounted machinegun snapped, and pulled the trigger, unleashing several sustained bursts that killed ‘em all; when screams, pieces of flesh and chunks of stucco filled the air; when blood kept spattering the bullet-pocked wall until none of the SS men were left standing. The crazed sergeant was firing at the twitching bodies on the ground when Colonel Sparks, reacting to the gunfire, came running over and kicked him off the weapon.

  Inside the Revier, Max had found Jake and Hannah in the meeting room with Dr. Cohen and other staffers. The single dose of penicillin hadn’t been sufficient and Jake was still seriously ill. Hannah had lost weight and was looking gaunt but seemed to be holding her own. Aware the camp was being liberated, the group was discussing how to brief and integrate American medical personnel when several prisoners came running down the long corridor into the room. “The Americans aren’t taking prisoners!” one of them shouted, excitedly.

  “They’re killing every German in sight!” another exclaimed with delight.

  An almost euphoric reaction came from the group of prisoner doctors and staffers. They knew the war was over; knew they had survived the Nazi atrocities; and there was an undeniable satisfaction in knowing their tormentors were getting all that was coming to them; but the indiscriminate nature of the vengeance, soon, struck them—struck close to home. Concerned looks darted from one to the next and the next. And when they had settled, all eyes were on Captain Maximilian Kleist, Waffen-SS.

  “I’m afraid Max is in extreme danger,” Jake said, breaking the tense silence.

  “Why?” Cohen protested. “We’ll tell the Americans he’s a doctor. That he’s been humane and caring. That he’s not one of the monsters. They’ll understand. He’ll be safe.”