None But The Brave: A Novel of the Surgeons of World War II

by Anthony A. Goodman

  Then she pursed her lips. He could feel her shaking, but he had no idea if it were from the fear that he might leave her or her rage to fight for him. Either way, it didn’t matter. There was no argument that was going to settle it. No choice they could make was going to be good. It was like the war itself in a way. No matter how hard they tried to choose the very best paths, there was always wreckage in their wake.

  And no matter what path I choose now, oh dear God, what havoc I’m going to create.

  Molly stayed silent as Schneider thought of all the heartbreak ahead of them. Then, she wriggled up, nuzzling her face into his neck and kissing him gently along the edge of his jaw. But as he moved closer to her, if that were possible, he felt her tears streaming down his neck and onto his chest. Her crying was silent at first, followed by sobs that shuddered her whole body. She soaked them both.

  When she stopped crying, she took his face in her hands and drew him into a long warm kiss. She rolled her soft lips around and around his until he released every thought but of loving her. Of loving her and making love with her. They scrambled out of what little they were wearing, pulling the scratchy blanket nearly completely over them. Molly pushed him gently onto his back and began kissing every inch of his body. He held her head and ran his fingers through her hair as he guided her kisses. She rested her head against his stomach and stroked his leg lazily, as if they had all night to be together. He could almost hear Edith Piaf again, the phonograph needle stuck in the last groove repeating toujours, toujours, toujours, toujours.

  “We don’t have forever tonight,” he said to her, forgetting that she had no idea that he was back in Paris.

  “Hmmm?” she said.

  “I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be alone.”

  In response, she pulled herself up and climbed on top of him. She kissed him again and, with her hand, guided him inside her. This time they remained locked together in a dreamy slow passion, a long, long time, a simmer until she climaxed with barely a peep, falling finally onto his chest again and stayed against him as they both, against all good judgment, fell asleep.

  Schneider woke from a deeply disturbed sleep, ready to tell her what he thought he needed to do. What they needed to do. He was tangled in the covers as he struggled to sit up in the pre-dawn darkness. He reached out to hold her again and pull her near him while they talked.

  But she was gone.

  When Hamm shook him awake later that morning, he leaped to his feet and scrambled for his clothes, thinking they were under attack. Hamm grabbed Schneider’s shoulders and calmed him down. Schneider squinted into the light and shook his head, which caused a sudden pain. He must have been out cold.

  “You’ve got to come see this, Steve!” Hamm was practically shouting and dragging Schneider at the same time. He had put his scrubs back on after realizing that Molly had left, so he slipped into his boots barefoot and followed Hamm out of the tent.

  “What’s happening?” he asked, still very muzzy-headed.

  “Just wait and see. Just wait.”

  It was a brilliant, shining day, which only made Schneider squint all the more and intensified the pounding behind his eyes. They crossed the open field and headed for the remains of the prisoner’s hospital, now empty except for Berg. The rest of their patients were all in the newly erected tents.

  Hamm entered first, and as soon as they both adjusted to the relative dimness of the room, Schneider was shocked into immediate alertness, that ability that doctors develop after years of midnight emergencies. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Molly and McClintock were standing next to the wall, with Gwerski and Green on the other side. Seated at his desk was Berg. He was wearing a clean white coat over regulation U.S. Army scrubs. Over the left breast pocket of his white coat was a brand new nametag that said Dr. Meyer Berg. His hair was combed, and though he was still emaciated and sallow, he looked like a new man. And he was smiling! Everyone was smiling.

  “My God, Uncle Meyer….” Schneider said. But he could find nothing more to say.

  Green stepped forward.

  “Major Schneider, I’d like you to meet our newest staff member.”

  Berg stood, slowly and painfully. He drew himself up to his full height, which Schneider could see was difficult for him. He extended his boney hand and said in his slightly accented English,

  “Good morning, Stephen.”

  Schneider shook Berg’s hand and then wrapped his arms around his uncle in a great bear hug. He could feel the bones through the thin skin and was afraid to squeeze too tightly. But Berg, too, held Schneider in his arms and did not release him. How long they held each other, Schneider wasn’t sure. But it was all he could do not to cry. In his attempt to keep his feelings to himself, he was struck mute.

  Berg sensed this, for he placed his left hand over Schneider’s and squeezed even harder. He nodded his head as if to say, “Yes, I understand. I am overwhelmed as well.”

  Finally, when they released each other, Berg sat down quickly. He was clearly overburdened by both the emotional strain of the meeting as well as the physical effort of such a small gesture as standing and hugging his nephew. He leaned back in his rickety little chair and looked at everyone, one at a time. Schneider hadn’t the slightest idea what Berg was thinking. Maybe what a ragtag bunch of saviors they all were. Probably not, though. He was looking not only at his long-lost nephew, but at his new colleagues, at others who knew just what he had been through and what he had to endure to stay loyal to his work, to his patients.

  They all remained silent for a while. Then Gwerski slipped from the room with barely a sound. Green stepped to the side of the desk and squeezed Berg’s shoulder. He nodded to all of them, then he, too, left the room with McClintock, followed closely behind by Hamm and Molly.

  “Well,” Berg said in perfect English. “We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

  “I think we do,” Schneider said.

  For the next several hours Berg and Schneider talked. Berg seemed never to tire now. He beckoned Steve to pull a chair closer to the desk and began to tell his story. It started slowly like the soft patter of water at the beginning of a light rain. Then as the minutes and the hours passed, the momentum built until the stream of words merged into rivers, and the rivers into a torrent, until neither he nor Schneider could stem the flood of tears, and nothing would stop it but the telling and the hearing of all that had happened.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  26 May 1945, 0800 hours

  A Concentration Camp near Weimar, Germany

  That first day, Berg had begun talking as soon as the others had left the room. Slowly at first, choosing his words carefully. Stephen listened intently. He never took his eyes off his uncle’s, never shifted in his seat.

  To Berg, his cherished nephew would always be Stephen. Never Schneider or Steve as the other officers called him. As Stephen and Berg laughed together and cried together, they looked deeply into each other’s souls. What Berg saw when he looked into Stephen’s eyes; deeply, deeply into his eyes, was himself. They were two made into one. Their stories were different, but they were the same.

  Over the next many days and weeks, Berg and Schneider talked in English and in German, and cursed and complained in Yiddish. Even a few words of French here and there when French expressed it best. Their languages bound them together almost as much as their blood, for they could use words in Yiddish that had no real equivalent in English. Some English words were senseless in German, and some words in German didn’t have the same impact when spoken in English. Calling the Nazi’s “pig-dogs!” just didn’t resonate the way “Schwein-Hund!” did. And there was something about cocksucker and ratfucker that was just silly in German. Only in American English was swearing made sexual.

  As Berg grew confident—not of his English, but of his story—he talked faster and faster until he had to stop himself and let Stephen talk for a while. The listening was hard. There was so much Berg wanted to tell his
nephew. Should Berg not survive, he knew that Stephen would take Berg’s story to the world, that Stephen must take his story to the world.

  “When they brought me here,” Berg said, “I looked upon the others…les autres…as something apart from me. I wasn’t one of them. This was some horrible mistake. They were Jews, of course, like me. But I felt apart. When they took me to the clinic and put me to work, it made the separation even greater. But with time, a very long time, I realized that there was no difference. We were all the same. Each of us was a precious soul to someone out there. I noticed that those prisoners with no living relatives tended to die faster. They had nothing to live for. But for the others, each life had a value, a uniqueness that was sacred. Although I had skills and a value that was measured as greater than the others by the Nazis, it was all a myth. For if the time were to come when they no longer needed a doctor but needed more strong backs for the quarries, then I would join the lines at the showers. I would end my existence in some mass grave or as ashes streaming from the tops of the tall chimneys. My ashen remains would fall into the mud or onto the houses in that village over there. No, I was not very special after all.”

  Berg paused, for he was close to tears again and didn’t want to cry.

  “You said that every soul is unique, sacred,” Stephen said. “I don’t remember you being a religious man, Uncle.”

  “Religious? No. Not really. Do I believe in God? Before the war I didn’t think about it much. I went to Schul on the High Holy days: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Pesach. But these were family events. Social events. Times to be together. To eat, mostly. To hug and kiss our relatives. But God? No, not really in any deep or meaningful way. I was…mmm…agnostic? Is that the word?”

  Stephen nodded. “That’s the word, if you mean you don’t know for sure one way or the other.”

  “Yes, yes, then. Agnostic. So, I didn’t dwell on it. Later, here, when my life was in danger every day, every minute, I began to get some faith. Based on fear, admittedly, but faith nonetheless.”

  “There are no atheists in foxholes,” Stephen muttered under his breath.

  Berg hesitated, for he had no idea what Stephen meant. Then it came to him and he laughed. “Yes. There are no atheists in foxholes, or in prison camps either. That is a good one,” he said with a smile to Schneider.

  “Well, I regained some faith,” he went on. “I prayed and made blessings over the patients. It was the only thing I could do for them sometimes, these barruchahs. I would have preferred your penicillin, but I had only the blessings, so I used them. I think they worked sometimes, too. Like penicillin. A miracle drug, you call it. So I had miracles, too. The miracle was that some of my patients actually survived. Not many, but some.”

  Stephen nodded but seemed to be caught in his own thoughts. Berg now waited for him to speak. There was a long silence, but Berg knew his nephew would say what he needed to when he was ready but not before.

  Schneider looked at his uncle again, and said, “Uncle Meyer. Can I ask you something? Something very personal?”

  “Of course, Stephen. You can ask me anything.”

  “Well, I have a problem. It might seem very trivial right now. With all the death and the suffering…. I’m almost ashamed to bring it up. But I have no one else left to go to.” Schneider looked away and pursed his lips, considering if he should continue.

  “Please, my boy. Go on.”

  “Some time ago I met someone. A nurse. You met her. Her name is Molly. We worked closely together, and after a while we began to have…feelings for each other.” Schneider squirmed.

  Berg waited, his face showing nothing. So Schneider continued.

  “So, one thing led to another. Something about the war, the killing, the dying, the fear, all of it, I think, pushed us closer and closer together. And now I think we’re both in love.” He grimaced at what he had just said, and squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I’m sorry, uncle, I shouldn’t involve you in this.”

  Berg smiled. “Go ahead, Stephen, involve me.” He gave a little laugh.

  Schneider breathed more easily and said, “Well, now the war is almost over. We’ll all be going home. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t want to go home. It wasn’t good between Susan and me when I left. Our marriage was a shambles. Had there been no war, it might have ended anyway. But, now?”

  “Listen to me, Stephen. This is an old story. Older than you can imagine. And believe it or not, I once faced the same problem. There was a woman in my life, who also wasn’t my wife. And like you, she was a nurse too. Before the war. Many years. And I had the same pain. Agony over what I should do.”

  Schneider waited a beat, wanting to hear the end of the story. Finally, he asked, “What did you do? How did you choose?”

  “In the end, I followed my heart,” Berg said quietly.

  The two men stared into each other’s eyes for the longest time. Neither spoke. Was Stephen’s Aunt Rachel his Molly or his Susan?

  But his uncle said nothing more.

  Finally, Schneider took a breath and said, “From what I’ve heard so far, you are telling me the story of my own life, Uncle Meyer. Not about Molly. But our families. Yours and mine. My parents are German Orthodox Jews just like you were, of course. But I never embraced my past or my religion. Truthfully, I rejected both. I’m an agnostic, too, maybe even an atheist. Foxholes or not. Or at least I was. Then, even if I didn’t start believing in God, I at least allowed myself to realize that there were some things out of my control. Along with that, I began to identify with my parents again, especially Mom. I realized how cruel it must have seemed to them that they embarrassed me so. That I never brought my friends home. That I denied their heritage, their religion. Now that I’m a father, myself, I can feel their anguish that their only son was ashamed of them for something that they could not control: who they were, where they came from. I feel so ashamed.

  “Then, when I got here—especially in the last weeks when we marched into a defeated Germany—I had new feelings about my mother and father. It wasn’t because of any fear of dying. I don’t think it ever struck me clearly until I walked into this camp. It was just like being hit in the chest with a huge rock. It took the wind out of me, and it literally knocked me to my knees. I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t stand up. I found I couldn’t look around at what was here: the people, and the bodies, and the suffering. I shut it all out. All the death and dying I’ve seen since D-Day did nothing to harden me, to prepare me for this. Then, on my knees next to Hamm in that mud—my best friend vomiting out his guts—and a little naked man, a skeleton, really, comes along and tries to comfort Hamm. Comfort us! His saviors! That was the moment, I think. I knew where my heart’s connections were, and I know now I can never sever them, even if I wanted to. I am connected to these people and to the generations of my people all the way as far as we can trace the family. And I can’t cut that cord no matter how much I might want to. I’m connected to you; there’s no need, no desire to cut that cord. I’m your nephew, and I’m a Jew. And I am a German.”

  Stephen stopped and lowered his head. It was the first time he stopped looking at Berg.

  “I know that connection, Stephen,” Berg said. “I am tied to our ancestors now as well. I even know exactly when I realized it. Too bad it had to happen as the result of something so awful. An evil beyond imagination. Too bad it doesn’t happen as the result of something wonderful. Some miracle of God. Saving a patient who really should have died. Shouldn’t that give us our faith every time? But it doesn’t. The miracles become routine, and just maybe, the horror is required. Horror beyond belief.”

  Berg stopped then because the memories were flooding back, and he wasn’t ready for them. But he knew that some floods he couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t stop this one. He talked and he sobbed and he told Stephen how he found his faith. It should have been something wonderful, but it was the most terrible thing that ever happened to him.

  He told Stephen of ho
w he had to kill his own father, Stephen’s great uncle.

  He told him in detail. Every intimate moment so that someone beside himself and that scum of a Nazi that made him do it (he would never speak that name again) would know. And Stephen listened and heard him and they both cried. Stephen barely remembered Berg’s father, it was so long ago that they had met. But in the telling of it, Berg knew that the nightmares might now end. That, for the first time since that evil moment in the hospital when he had to plunge the needle into his father’s heart, he might sleep through the night and not wake again drenched in his own sweat and tears. For a moment, with Stephen hugging his shoulders and comforting him, Berg was afraid that he had passed on a contagion to Stephen worse than typhus, worse than the plague—that he had infected Stephen with his nightmares. Berg wondered silently how Stephen would ever be cured of such knowledge.

  When Berg could speak no more, the two stood and held each other in silence until the shaking and the sobbing subsided. Stephen backed slowly away and sat down again, and to his everlasting credit in Berg’s eyes, he did not try to console him or rationalize what Berg had done. He did not tell Berg that it was OK because it ultimately saved his father further suffering. He did not tell Berg that he really had no choice, that he did the right thing. No, instead he chose to suffer with him and share the terrible weight in his heart and, by doing so, lightened it a fraction. Berg might never dream of that awful act again, but he would also never spend a remaining day of his life without thinking of it. Now, sadly, neither might Stephen.

  However, there was something more. Something Schneider would not crystallize in his mind for several more days. Something had happened to him as he shared the terror and the horror with his uncle. He realized—no, more than that; he truly believed for the very first time—that there are many things worse than pain or death. Death, in itself, was a normal event in the course of living. Sometime after that day, Schneider felt the nagging fears that plagued his life slip away from him like a heavy burden falling from his shoulders. No, he realized, there are many worse things than death. With that threat gone, there was little left to frighten him.