“Put your feelings for the old guy on hold, forget what’s at stake for your company and client, make believe I’m a stranger and, for a moment, just a moment, become one of them down there, okay?”
Stacey nodded dutifully.
“Now, knowing all that you know,” Adam said, softly, holding her eyes with his, “What would you do?”
EPILOGUE
As Adam requested, Stacey made a conscious effort to set aside her first hand knowledge and feelings, and make an objective assessment of the dilemma he faced. “Not an easy one,” she said after spending some time looking out the window to the street, wrestling with it. “But human nature being what it is, I figure half the folks down there would say, ‘Blow the whistle on that miserable Nazi. Write your story and let the chips fall where they may.’ The other half, like Sol and Gunther, would say, ‘Why destroy an obviously decent man? Spike it. And let the good doctor off the hook…’”
“And you?”
“Me? Come on, Clive, you know where I’m at on this,” Stacey replied with a wince. “For openers, I’d forget I ever noticed the same prisoner ID number was tattooed in different handwriting…”
Adam raised a brow and cocked his head evaluating it. “It sounds like you’re suggesting I dispense with my legendary certainty and professional detachment…”
“Sure am,” Stacey said, brightening at his compliant tone. “Then I’d delete all your computer files, erase the data chip in your recorder, and make a beeline for the nearest shredder with your notebook.”
Adam nodded, thoughtfully, digesting it; then he slipped the spiral bound pad from a pocket and handed it to her. “Here you go…”
Stacey took the notebook and studied Adam’s eyes. “You sure about that, Clive?”
Adam held her look unblinkingly and nodded.
Despite Adam’s decision to bury the story, Gunther, Tannen and Stacey subsequently determined it would be unethical, indeed unconscionable and professionally dangerous for the agency and for their client to proceed with the campaign as planned.
Sol Steinbach had little choice but to agree when they advised that the kick-off ads featuring him and Dr. Jacob Epstein be withdrawn; but he was heartbroken over losing the opportunity it had presented to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. “Well kid,” he said to Stacey, half-heartedly. “You saved my ass more than once. I can’t imagine there’s anything left in that bag of tricks; but if there is, now’s the time.”
Stacey shrugged at the obvious impossibility of it, and then tilted her head in thought. A few moments passed before her eyes flashed with a mischievous twinkle at an idea that occurred to her. Tannen, Gunther, and Steinbach exchanged puzzled looks as she dashed across the office and fetched one of the discarded kick-off posters of Steinbach standing next to Dr. Jacob Epstein seated on his vintage suitcase. The three men became further mystified when Stacey tore it in half top to bottom and handed one of the pieces to Steinbach. It was the half that depicted him in his warrior-like pose with arms crossed against his chest, displaying his Auschwitz tattoo. “Roll up your sleeves Mr. S!” Stacey exclaimed with a grin. “Be a tough, proud Holocaust survivor. Roll up your sleeves and stick it to those Nazi bastards!”
The following week, full page ads with the copy line SURVIVING HARROWING JOURNEYS centered above a gritty black and white image of Steinbach with his own vintage suitcase ran in magazines and newspapers the world over.
Concurrently, The New York Times published a human interest story, under Adam’s byline, about a Holocaust survivor who was five years old when Auschwitz was liberated, escaped from Communist East Germany with his uncle, and came to America; and about how, more than sixty years after surviving that harrowing journey, and rebuilding the family business into an extremely successful manufacturer of high quality luggage, Solomon Steinbach had become not only the company’s CEO but also its advertising spokesman. He was especially proud that each advertisement carried the following secondary copy line:
A PORTION OF THE PROFITS WILL BE CONTRIBUTED BY STEINBACH &
COMPANY TO THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER TO EXPLORE ISSUES
OF PREJUDICE, TEACH TOLERANCE, AND FIGHT ANTI-SEMITISM.
The German Suitcase Page 35