Shit! That’s because I am making it up as I go along. Face it. I am going down. It is only a matter of time before they discover that Herr Ovesen is, in fact, Herr Niska, a wanted criminal, an enemy of the Führer.
“That’s enough for today,” the commandant said brusquely and abruptly. He nodded at the subordinate to take Niska back to his barrack.
Niska shivered in the fog the next morning when he was led outside to the train siding and ordered to board the train along with a large crowd of camp guests, as the Kommandant called them, Jews, all of them. A very crowded, uncomfortable two hours later, the train disgorged its passengers at another camp, a larger, more forbidding one.
All the passengers had to wait seemingly interminably before being processed by the personnel from the registration of new arrivals. Niska stood at the end of the long line, still holding Hudak’s incriminating suitcase. His legs were asleep from having sat awkwardly on them in the aisle of the crowded coach. The tear in the trousers of his business suit had grown. He leaned against the wall of one of the wooden barracks.
Directly in front of him was a group of children, a juvenile with four small siblings. Their clothing was in tatters. All of them were dark-haired and pale-looking, typical Eastern European Jewish children. When it was their turn to be processed, they were pushed together violently into the barrack—needlessly violently, Niska thought. A guard slammed the door behind them.
That left Niska standing alone in a small inner yard, unable to go either in or out. The camp personnel seemed to have retreated to some other part of the compound. The door to the barrack was locked tight, as was the wire gate through which the passengers had been funneled into the camp.
It was late in the afternoon. Niska had been alone in the yard for several hours. He tried to push out of his mind his fear of what being singled out in this way might mean, what special punishment awaited him.
Suddenly, he heard the sound of a key opening the door through which his unfortunate young companions had been pushed. Niska expected to see a uniformed guard coming to fetch him, or perhaps the Kommandant who had interrogated him earlier. But instead, it was a man in civilian tradesman’s clothes, appearing startled that someone should still be standing in the yard so late in the day.
“Was...? Was wollen Sie?” What do you want?
In a flash, the situation became clear to Niska. He could hardly believe it. The man had absolutely no idea that Niska was part of the large group that had been transported to the camp. Perhaps the business suit, as torn as it was at the knee, confused the man.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ach,” Niska responded. “I came here to try to visit one of the apprehended ones, a familiar tailor from my town. But I am told that is not permitted. Now I’m only waiting for someone to open the gate for me so that I can return home in Ostrava.”
The man apologized for what he surmised was some other person’s neglect.
“My shift helping maintain the electrical system is over. I’m ready to go home, too.” They walked together toward the gate.
The man waved a thumbs-up to the guard in the tower near the entrance. The guard returned a thumbs-up signal. The man opened the gate by manipulating a metal bar. He bowed deeply and asked Niska to pass before him through the gate.
Niska was still worried that despite the exchange of thumbs-up signals, the guard in the tower would open fire on them.
“My car is right over there, Mein Freund. The trains to Ostrava have stopped running for the day. I am happy to drive you.”
The man did not need to ask Niska twice. He directed the man to drop him off near a residential area close to the train station, thanking him profusely as they reached the destination.
The next morning, Niska took the short train trip across the Polish border—using Sven Ovesen’s passport—and to Katowice. It had been several days since he and Hudak went separate ways by the stream. He managed to track down Jiri Hudak through a synagogue that was housing a group of the Czech refugees who had, each in his or her own way, managed to flee from Czechoslovakia into Poland.
“I had given up on you, Herr Niska. When you didn’t show up in Katowice the first few days, I was sure that you had been apprehended by the Nazis, maybe even executed.”
“You got part of it right. I was apprehended. I’ve added a couple of other anxious episodes to my collection of adventures. But as you can see, here I am, alive and well. By the way, here is your suitcase. Good riddance. It was almost the death of me.”
~~~
The two boarded a train to Krakow to fetch a Finnish passport for Hudak at the Finnish consulate there. A polite secretary reached into a mailbox labeled “Sven Ovesen.” “Here, this must be it, an envelope postmarked in Berlin.”
It was difficult to tell who was more relieved, Hudak or Niska. “Thank you very much,” Niska said on behalf of both of them and flashed a charming smile.
“It’s a good thing, Mr. Niska, that you came to retrieve the passport today,” the secretary said.
“Oh?”
“We might not have been here tomorrow.”
“Some kind of Polish holiday?”
“No. More serious than that. Helsinki has ordered us to evacuate the premises and return immediately to Finland.”
“Sounds rather drastic. Are the Poles taking back their welcome?”
“Word is that Hitler is on the cusp of invading Poland from the west,” she informed him. “We’ve got to get out of the country before he mistakes us for the hated Poles.”
“What?” Niska was genuinely surprised that Hitler was actually going ahead with what he and many others had suspected he might do. “He’s gambling that neither France nor Britain will dare to come to the aid of the Poles?”
“There’s more, I’m afraid,” the attractive secretary added. “We're told by our people that Stalin is sending armored and infantry battalions toward the Polish border, too, from the east. It appears that Poland is going to be squeezed in a deadly vise, I'm afraid. We don't want to be squeezed along with it.”
Jiri was not able to follow the conversation in Finnish. He didn’t need for Niska to translate, however. The grave look on Niska’s face sufficed as the conversation with the secretary ended. The blanched look told Jiri that it was high time for him to catch the train to Danzig
Niska handed Hudak the Finnish passport hurriedly. He wished him a good trip. “May good fortune follow you as you sail to out-of-the-way, off-the-beaten-track Finland. I don’t think Hitler will have much interest in following you there.”
They shook hands. Hudak released Niska’s hand, and proceeded to embrace him, not a form of farewell to which the solitary, seafaring Finn was accustomed.
Weeks later in his Berlin hotel apartment, Niska tried to picture in his mind Hudak boarding the steamer, waiting for arrival in Helsinki, finally stepping on Finnish soil. At least, he hoped so. The daydream filled him with a depth of satisfaction that he had seldom felt before. In his whiskey smuggling days, there was always the sense of completion when the booty had been delivered successfully to its destination, a relishing of winning the cat and mouse game with the authorities. More than once, Swedish maritime police had pursued him to the end of Swedish territorial waters, all the while firing bullets at him and his boat. Once in Danish waters he would laugh derisively at his frustrated Swedish trackers. But next time, he might not be so fortunate.
But the escapade of helping Hudak escape the Nazis, not just once, but twice, all the moments of uncertainty and foreboding, and even despair, in the process, yet sweet escape nonetheless—nothing he had ever experienced in his fifty years could compare to this feeling of elation and gratification.
Niska knew from his own experience what confinement and surrender of freedom were like. He had known freedom, too, especially out on the open seas, the whole world before him, his choice where to land limited only by weather and the wind.
But it was a novel kind of freedom he was experienci
ng now—the freedom from concern for his own safety, the freedom to assist others like Jiri attain their freedom using his distinctive skills and unique history.
He was convinced in the deepest part of him that he was now doing what he was put on earth to do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Berlin: February 28, 1940
Auguste Diehn couldn’t have been more effusive in his utterances of gratitude to Kersten for having rescued his faithful foreman from Dachau. He came to see Kersten at his clinic in his flat with increasing frequency, just incidentally for treatments. Each time, before Diehn left, he handed Kersten a handwritten note containing the names of other Jews in need of rescue that had been made known to him.
Kersten received these names with a different attitude than he had Diehn’s earlier requests for “personal favors.” It seemed that all the rational arguments against taking these risks had evaporated with time. The euphoria of his first success in extracting from Himmler the freedom of a human being still warmed his blood a month and a half later.
Himmler had granted to Kersten a short leave so that he could return to his wife in The Hague. Once he got off the train at the elegant central terminal there, Kersten breathed deeply of the free, fresh air. His emotion on returning to the city he loved so much was even stronger than he had anticipated. The reunion with Irmgaard was a pleasant interlude in which they alternated between making love, fine dining in the best restaurants in The Hague, and quiet evenings together in their luxurious flat.
He made use of the time to reintroduce himself and his services to the royal family.
The extraordinary gift of time and freedom from the watchful eyes of the SS and Gestapo enabled Kersten to organize a veritable secret network of informants and associates throughout the Netherlands. Before he was summoned back to Berlin he had accomplices in most strategic sectors of Holland’s political and business life.
One morning after his return to Berlin, Kersten stopped at Rudolf Brandt’s desk in the anteroom to Himmler’s office. He noticed that someone else had had the same idea, so he stood back to await his turn to talk to Himmler’s personal assistant. A tall, fit, almost aristocratic- looking SS officer was finishing a conversation with Brandt. He was meticulously dressed in his uniform. There was something about the man’s aspect, however, some subtle form of uneasiness in his otherwise correct posture, that suggested that the man was not entirely comfortable for some reason wearing the uniform. When the officer finished his conversation with Brandt, he turned to leave. As he did so, he looked directly into Kersten’s face and gave a slight hint of a smile. The man’s face didn’t register even a hint of suspicion. Kersten was accustomed to a kind of hostile glower from other Himmler’s lieutenants. They made no attempt to hide their unfriendly glares that amounted to querulous warnings. “Watch yourself, foreigner. You may be Himmler’s personal doctor, but we’ve got you in our sights.”
Kersten wasn’t sure exactly what this officer was communicating, but he responded to him with a friendly nod of his head and an uncertain smile. Once the officer left—without the ritualistic “Heil Hitler” salute—Kersten approached Brandt.
“I’d advise you to not overlook that officer,” Brandt said to Kersten, nodding his head in the direction of the door. “He might be of some help to you.”
“Who is he? I don’t believe I’ve encountered him before.”
“That’s SS Lieutenant-General Walter Schellenberg. He is the head of the SD—the Sicherheitsdienst—the secret intelligence service that the Reichsführer arranged to be folded into the SS itself late last year. He’s one of the Reichsführer’s most trusted lieutenants. Has he not mentioned Schellenberg to you?”
“No, the only men he mentions are the ones he’s not so sure he can trust, like Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner. I guess he’s more focused on potential enemies than allies.”
Brandt nodded his head and smiled knowingly. Kersten filed Brandt’s advice for possible future reference.
“I’ve got a little personal request to make of you, Rudolf,” Kersten began in a voice barely louder than a whisper, as though he were about to confess something. “It’s rather sensitive, if you catch my drift.”
Brandt moved his chair closer to his desk, a move that indicated his willingness to hear the confession.
“I met some interesting women while back in Holland,” Kersten confided. “Very beautiful ones, at that.” He smiled devilishly at Brandt.
“I’m sure you have a good eye for the most desirable ladies, Herr Doctor.”
In point of fact, Kersten had not had encounters, at least not romantic or sexual ones, with any women in The Hague other than Queen Wilhelmina and Irmgaard. But he was enjoying this little exercise in fantasy.
“I am sure these women will want to write to me here in Berlin. I’m sure you understand, Rudolf, how it pains me to think that these delectable personal letters will be read by the censors if I correspond back and forth with them through the Reichspost.”
Kersten didn’t have to wait long for Brandt to take the bait. Since Kersten was in such good graces with his boss, Brandt no longer bothered to conceal his liking for the doctor.
“Then, Doctor, use the Reichsführer’s postal box.”
“What? Himmler’s mailbox? That would be very risky, would it not?”
“No, not at all. I’m the one who sorts the Reichsführer’s mail every day. I’m not sure, in fact, that he even knows where his official postal box is located. I will be sure to pass on to you privately any mail that is addressed to you.”
“Is this really safe, Rudolf?” asked Kersten.
“Trust me: It’s the only safe postal box in all of Germany.”
~~~
When Kersten came into Himmler’s office to perform another treatment, Himmler’s mood was unusually jovial for a man in pain.
“Kersten, how good to see you. I hear that you have been very busy in The Hague. I was glad to hear what Brandt passed on to me this morning.”
Himmler made a very awkward attempt to wink at Kersten. A spasm caught in Kersten’s throat.
Himmler smiled broadly. “Every man deserves an occasional discretion. I’m proud of you, Kersten. I’m delighted that you don’t consider yourself above the rest of us who dabble in love affairs from time to time.”
“Brandt told you this?” Kersten asked, totally flummoxed, his anger at Brandt beginning to simmer.
“Well, yes, of course. Brandt had to secure my permission for your use of my official postal box. I had to sign off on it, or else the Chancellery postmaster would begin asking questions of people who shouldn’t be asked. Suspicions grow like a cancer in the Chancellery. I was overjoyed to affix my signature to the request.”
“Then, no one else but you and Brandt know about my amorous liaisons? Or that I have such generous access to your private mailbox?” Kersten asked.
“There are few things of which you can be more certain, Doctor…Now, are you ready for my treatment? I’ve been in terrible pain.”
Kersten had scanned the titles of books once on the small bookshelf in Himmler’s office. Hitler’s Mein Kampf was there, not surprisingly. There were also titles like Willibald Hentschel’s Varuna: The Origins of the Aryan Race; The Crusade Against the Holy Grail written by one of Himmler’s SS recruits; Otto Rahn, and a series of other volumes of stories of the medieval Teutonic Knights. That helped explain, thought Kersten, why Himmler had chosen the Renaissance-era Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia as the locale for his SS Officers Training School. Against the resistance of several others in Hitler’s inner circle, Himmler had insisted on a grand redesign of the interior as a replica of a castle of the old Teutonic Order. The former schoolteacher would appear before a classroom of officer recruits dressed in the full attire of a Teutonic warrior and, much to their chagrin and embarrassment, would insist that his senior deputies Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner do the same. Himmler wished to identify himself with Frederick Barbarossa, Henry I, the Fowler, and other emperors
and princes of that epoch. Himmler believed himself to be their reincarnation in the twentieth century.
Himmler confided these fantasies more than once to Kersten, who saw an opportunity in turning Himmler’s almost childlike hero worship to his own use.
“Herr Reichsführer,” Kersten began near the end of a therapy session. “In the centuries to come, I am sure you will be called the greatest leader of the German people, the equal of Barbarossa and Henry the Fowler.”
“Doctor, you are much too kind to have such a high opinion of me,” Himmler said in response. But Kersten could tell that Himmler was enjoying the comparison immensely.
“I mean it sincerely, I assure you, Herr Reichsführer. You know yourself that you are so much more gifted for leadership than your colleagues.”
“Like Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner?” Himmler asked. “More rivals than colleagues, I’d say. The Führer is right to put more trust in me than in the others.”
“That he is, Herr Reichsführer.”
Kersten paused strategically, then continued and finished the massage session. He waded into these waters of obsequiousness with caution—and a nausea akin to seasickness. But he had to be careful to remain credible to Himmler. When the session was over and he knew Himmler would be almost inebriated with relief and pleasure, his head swollen by the flattery, Kersten resumed his stratagem.
“You must remember, Herr Reichsführer, that those admirable heroes like Barbarossa and Henry the Fowler did not owe their greatness to force and courage alone.”
“What do you mean, Doctor? They were knights.”
“Well, I am sure you are aware that knights were known for their sense of justice and generosity. To truly resemble these valiant cavaliers, a man must be as magnanimous in victory as they were, would he not?”
“They slaughtered their enemies,” Himmler objected.
“Yes, but from what I know—and admittedly, that is not as much as you—they slaughtered only the ones who were necessary to liquidate, and spared the rest.” Kersten cringed internally as he used the term “liquidate.” It had become the Nazi euphemism of choice for their widespread murderous activities. “That may be so,” admitted Himmler. “I didn’t know you had an interest in our Teutonic heroes.”
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