by Cat Gardiner
Out dropped a pamphlet, which floated to the Persian rug.
The book seemed an odd place to tuck a leaflet for posterity or keepsake, and uncharacteristic of her father. She certainly hadn’t put it there, but sure that she was the only person in the Renner household to have read any Mark Twain.
What stared up from the floor caused Lizzy to gasp aloud. A shocking, unmistakable image on the thin flyer alarmed her: the Nazi swastika and a few unfamiliar German words, although one word she had recently heard Ingrid use in disdain—Jude.
At Lizzy’s left, Kitty’s casual conversation went unheard; she froze, riveted in somber awareness of what had invaded her sheltered world. She picked up the handout, attempting to read a language she did not know. The image and the large black writing instantly repulsed her, and a chill ran down her spine; the six-pointed star with the word Jude frightened her. Not that she understood what it read, but it was clear to her this was Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda. Is this Father’s or is it Ingrid’s? Why is this terrible literature at Meercrest?
Quickly setting the book aside, she shoved the pamphlet into her pant pocket determined to analyze it in private.
Scanning the volumes before her, Lizzy removed another American novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The moment she slid it from the shelf, she noticed a slight break in the foot edge. The book automatically opened to its foreign—and contrary—contents.
Tucked within the pages rested a thin booklet. The cover read: Amerikadeutscher Volksbund. Although she couldn’t translate it verbatim, she clearly understood “Amerika” “Deutsch” and “Bund.” Horrified, she recalled Operation Pastorius and the organization the saboteurs belonged to, as reported in the newspapers. There was that word again—Bund. There was that disturbing image again—Swastika.
Lizzy’s heart pounded, she felt a sudden flush overtake her and braced her hand against the bookshelf. Whose was this? Why was it in the Renner library essentially hidden from view, concealed within All-American novels?
Her breath labored against panic as she attempted to gather even a modicum of self-restraint so as not to alarm Kitty, so sure her sister could hear the rampant beating of her heart.
Lizzy fanned through the pages of the booklet, unable to discern what it was. Within the contents, a loose slip of printed propaganda poked out from the corner. It read in English, “Menace of the Jews. There is a great danger in the United States of America; this great danger is the Jew …”
Though it did not seem possible, her heart began to beat even faster as the reality of what she held in her hands dawned. She didn’t have the courage to continue to read the two-sided leaflet. She lowered the distressing literature, and stared blankly at the book-filled shelves before her, her mind racing and processing. Closing her eyes to hold back unexpected tears, she rationalized: It couldn’t be Fathers, could it? No, not my father. In spite of his inflammatory opinions about the war and Germany’s eventual victory, in no means did it imply he was an anti-Semite, did it? The propaganda indicates that Benjamin Franklin stated this—can that be true?
“Lizzy, did you hear what I just said?”
“Hmm … yes, of course I did.”
“What do you have there?”
“Nothing important.” Something important, dreadfully important.
Again, she pocketed the slip of paper after carefully replacing the booklet back where she found it. She resolved in her mind that George Gebhardt must have given her father this material and throwing them in the trash would have led the servants to believe he was a bigot and a Nazi sympathizer. Yes, that must be it. That is the only acceptable explanation for their presence in Meercrest. The only one.
No longer searching for books for the campaign, her curiosity, and determination to disprove the harping voice in the recesses of her mind took over. Following the pattern emerging for the culprit’s manner of filing, she removed the brown, embossed first edition of Moby-Dick from the bottom shelf.
Disbelief fought agony. Logic and reason fought the incriminating evidence before her. The loyal daughter she had always believed herself to be couldn’t fathom that this literature was her father’s. Resting in her hands, tucked within chapter twelve, was another political pamphlet, printed in German. The cover image portrayed an airplane; the words clear: Hitler über Deutschland.
No, no, no! You are reading too many spy novels, Lizzy. You are jumping to wrong conclusions! Father is not a Nazi sympathizer. A former member of the American First Committee, yes, but not a Nazi sympathizer.
~~*~~
The sun wasn’t even up yet, but the DeVrieses were wide-awake, sitting in the pre-dawn darkness silently eating breakfast. Neither father nor daughter could sleep and eating always seemed the best remedy.
Fifty-one year-old Estella’s hazel eyes held her father’s gaze when she reached across the table, sliding her hand between the bread and the cheese. She patted his frail hand and spoke in Dutch, “Do not worry so, Papa. I have telephoned my friend at the Dutch Consulate. He promised to help if the rumors I have heard are true. Have faith, they will not come to our home.”
Willem simply nodded, so untrusting, so sure that her friend’s efforts would be for naught, as useless as running and hiding would be for him. “You trust too much and must go while there is still time. You have some money and diamonds to bribe the Gendarmes who are not Vichy loyal. They would not deport you.”
“No. I will not leave you alone and that is my final word on the matter. Please, Papa. Even if we are arrested, we will return. No one will deport us anywhere. He has given me his word.”
He sighed, toying with the jewelers loop hanging from a chain around his neck, a habit he had performed for as long as she could remember. “I do not believe that. I am old, Estella. Go now while you can. Save yourself. Find passage to America, and tell my grandsons what you have seen, what you have heard. Bear witness.”
“France will prove these rumors unfounded. They will not let it happen.”
Estella rose, walking to the window. Silently, she moved the delicate, linen kitchen curtain to the side and stared down out at the still dark, narrow street. Dawn was barely breaking, casting a faint red-tinged hue to the sky. The old buildings lining Rue des Rosiers were a testament to the long history of the Le Marais district where Jews have lived and flourished under the protection of the Republic of France for two hundred years. This little section of the Pletzl on the Right Bank of the Seine was filled with the rich tapestry of their faith, and nothing, not even the bombing of the Pavée Synagogue on Yom Kippur the year prior, would annihilate the history of their people. She believed that with every fiber of her being.
“The boys know what is happening in Europe. My letter to William when I sent him all of your assets and the family heirlooms, explained everything.” She glanced at her father’s blue sweater hanging from the back of the kitchen chair. The yellow star caused her eyes to well with tears, and her chin trembled ever so slightly. Determined, she said as brightly as she could muster, “Anna tells me both he and Louis are in love with sisters.”
“Sisters? I once thought your mother’s sister very beautiful, but my dear Carolien was a far better match. We were much better suited—she cooked—I ate—together we laughed. Her sister never cooked, so your Uncle Jozef never ate and they hardly spoke.” He snorted a laugh. “That is why he was secretly in love with your mother. It was her bolus. Aahh … I can still smell them.”
Estella wrung her hands together. “Anna cooks but with two grown sons, she has no choice. She tells me her Julien loves her Dutch cooking.”
“He is a good and righteous man my Christian son who has grown and protected our family’s business, my baby daughter, and my grandsons. When I die, I will be at peace knowing that.”
“Stop that. No one is dying—not today.”
With heavy hearts and equally heavy minds, father and daughter could hear a commotion in the narrow street below: the unwilling shuffling of feet upon the ancient stone pavement below th
eir window, the fisted banging upon the door of the townhouse opposite theirs, and the muffled voices of their Jewish neighbors. It was all enough to silence them, but in their silence, they prayed like the dark night of the first Passover.
Their eyes locked before Estella left the kitchen to her bedroom at the far end of the hall, promptly returning with two snapshots. “See Papa, how they look wearing their uniforms. I am so proud of my nephews. They fight for freedom.”
Louie and Will’s grandfather took the two photographs from her hand as she leaned over his shoulder to view them with him. She admired the boys, now men, as only an aunt would. “Louis looks like you. Anna writes me he has arrived in New Zealand, and William is training in Florida to fly bomber planes. I know one day, he will help liberate France and the Netherlands.”
Willem ran his crooked index finger down one smooth, paper cheek then the other.
A fist pounding at their door sounded and father and daughter froze, one looking up at the other, eyes meeting in the understanding that her friend had failed. Estella smoothed her father’s gray hair, and he whispered with intense insistence, “Hide, Estella. Do not answer it.”
She smiled wistfully, ignoring his plea and left him sitting in the kitchen. In the dark, she walked slowly down the black and white, mosaic floor. Her heart hammered thunderously when the fist pounded against the wood door, again.
“Who is it?”
“It is the police, open up.”
Estella opened the door to see a French Gendarme, standing beside a man in a dark suit and fedora hat. Both men were eerily backlit by the rising sun. Their silhouettes looked ominous and sinister, as they should and as she expected they would.
The plain-clothes official spoke, “You are Estella DeVries?”
She stood tall, raising her chin and bravely pulling her shoulders back. Her strength in her calmness was apparent. “I am. What is this about?”
“You and Willem DeVries are to come with us.”
“And where are you taking us?”
He ignored her question, his attention garnered by her father who stood frail, hunched over and leaning upon his cane at the kitchen door. “You are both to bring three days clothing and food. Let me see your identity papers.”
Shaken, Estella walked to her father, then slid their papers from the small table in the hallway. She held them out as the official entered the corridor of their elegant townhouse. “Sir, my father is ill. Can he not stay here?”
He looked over his shoulder to the police officer who still stood at the door, looking away shamefaced. Walking to the gold framed painting on the wall, he admired it. “This is an original Hendrick Avercamp, no?”
“Yes. One of a pair of paintings. They have been in our family for five generations.” She paused, thinking quickly. “If you pass by this house and remove our names from your list, it is yours.”
He snickered, removed a small spiral pad and pencil from his suit jacket pocket and made a notation then snapped it closed. “You are both to come with us.”
~~*~~
Fifteen
Contrasts
August 4-8, 1942
Greystone Mansion resembled many other Manhattan townhouses built during the Gilded Age, comprising nearly fifty rooms within the five-storied structure, spanning an entire quarter of a city block. Renner had inherited the mansion, like many of his contemporaries who had done the same, but he refused to sell as they had. Even directly next door, J.P. Morgan had razed his father’s impressive mansion to build a library and exhibition room, a building now called The Annex.
The Renner Beaux Arts mansion had become his personal sanctuary located on Madison Avenue in Murray Hill. It was his escape, so to speak, and there was no way he would part with it. Although designed for his mother’s sensibilities, the ceiling murals, gold latticework, and painted panels were comforting to him whenever he traversed even a fraction of the palatial mansion. The opulent ballroom, art gallery, and concert hall were superfluous to him, but they were each standard requirements within a residence of this magnitude at his level of society.
Fine works of art had never held any sensorial appeal to him beyond an investment value and as such, testimony of the Renner affluence and greatness. It was only now with the gifts of gratitude from the Reich that art was becoming a new fascination. He understood the Führer’s desire for his museum in Linz, Austria. Germans were culturally superior and the magnificence of the Führermuseum would be an indisputable declaration to the world. Surely, the Degas and the Monet would have been fine additions, yet they had been given to him. Acquisition by the Reich was assured—superior blood deserved such works, and he concurred. The newly acquired paintings represented a significant badge of honor when the head of the Wehrmacht, Hermann Göring arranged for their delivery to Meercrest.
Artwork aside, Greystone’s basement parking garage, accessible through an automobile elevator, was his particular favorite feature of the edifice. Autos and boats were lifelong personal passions, only reduced to distant second standing by his dedication to the Third Reich, which consumed him these seven years. Nevertheless, Greystone was his home, not his wife’s. Neither she nor the children ventured to 37th Street without explicit invitation.
He sat at his desk, a massive piece dominating the space with its ornamentation and antiquity, his rigid back addressing the floor to ceiling Tiffany stained glass window behind him. Papers lay strewn, and a cigar burned slowly in the ashtray on the desktop, a ribbon of sweet tobacco swirling upward. An empty rocks glass rested beside one tightly fisted hand as the other signed his name.
Frustrated and angry, he ran his fingers through his thinning hair after laying down the fountain pen. Apologies weren’t something he was used to giving, but the chief of the Abwehr was demanding an explanation. Failure was unacceptable, especially since the Führer’s declaration, “The greatest activity will be necessary in America.”
Renner hoped that his favor wasn’t fleeting. Ursula was expecting a piece of artwork as well, and then there was his Elizabeth, who, when she understood and had taken up her role as Mrs. George Gebhardt in the New Germany, should be gifted with a Renoir or a Rembrandt. Had she not voiced her admiration of those works following her insolent visit with the De Rothschild Jews?
The grandfather clock chimed on the hour heralding the execution of the saboteurs by electric chair in a D.C. jailhouse, and Renner sighed. Still unsure what had gone wrong with Operation Pastorious, he couldn’t dismiss the tremor of insecurity bubbling below his cool, calm, and ostensibly affable exterior. Someone talked, but who? Who else knew of the plan? How did the FBI get wind of the two landing parties? He, himself had firsthand knowledge that America’s coastline wasn’t impregnable and knew most of the men specifically selected for the mission. Former members of the German-American Bund would never have betrayed this vital Operation set to dismantle the American war machine.
He had just sealed the letter when Ursula entered the study holding the newest issue of the Nazi Party’s women’s magazine Frauen-Warte. “Frederick, will we be leaving for the Stork Club at eight?”
“After you deliver this letter to Yorkville.” His hungry eyes took in her appearance. The silky drape to her dress, adhered with an ornate broach upon her hip accentuated her full curves. She was a magnificent looking, zaftig woman with blonde curls and hazel eyes and lips that did things he had only dreamed about.
She sauntered to him, aware of how Renner undressed her with his gaze. She dropped the publication upon his messy desk then dragged her manicured hand along its edge to his outstretched arm, up to his shoulder. She moved seductively around the desk, until she came to stand behind him. Strong fingers massaged his shoulders, attempting to offer him relief through his dress shirt.
“You’re tense, Liebelein.” She leaned forward and flicked the top of his ear with the taut tip of her tongue. “I can do something about that.”
He smirked. “I know you can, but this letter is of the utmost importance
. Berlin awaits answers for the failure of Operation Pastorius.”
“But our time together is so limited, my dear. I am expected back at Meercrest in the morning to care for your dear daughter.”
The sarcasm was evident in her voice. He knew, given the go ahead, she willingly, if not eagerly, would do whatever he asked of her when it came to Kitty, but even he wouldn’t go that far.
Renner wrapped his chubby fingers around the cigar and took a rapid series of puffs. “I’ll be back on the Island in a few days, and we’ll have all the time you desire. Frances will be visiting the Astors in Newport for the rest of the summer and, as for Kitty, my Elizabeth is considering taking her to my sister’s. She tells me that Kitty feels she doesn’t need a nurse any longer.”
“She’s an invalid. Of course, she needs a nurse.”
“If it keeps you in residence, well then, yes she does. Otherwise, I would shut her in an asylum far from the Renner estate, away from my circle and name. For the time being, I will keep her at Meercrest, if only to keep you beside me.”
Ursula sat upon the edge of the desk and crossed her legs baring her knees when her skirt hiked. “And what of Elizabeth’s situation?”
“I cannot be sure. The boy’s family owns one of the largest diamond houses in the city. Diamonds and Jews are almost synonymous … but this Martel family is Christian. It could be a ruse; have we not seen this throughout all of Eastern Europe? Have you heard anything discussed between my daughters?”
She shook her head, reverently stroking the spine of a book she knew well, International Jew written for the Dearborn Independent by Henry Ford, a man she, as well as Hitler, greatly admired. “What do you plan to do about the soldiers?”
“The war will be their demise before I feel the need to have Gebhardt address the situation. He is, however, compiling an in-depth dossier on the family, reaching out to some of our European friends. I am curious to learn his findings. Suffice it to say, no daughter of mine, especially Elizabeth will associate with Juden. She’s promised to Gebhardt.”