Accidental Saviors

by Jack A Saarela

  I might have as a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old.

  “I tell you this, Herr Reichsführer, because I am thinking of your reputation in the centuries to come after this war is over and the history books are written."

  Kersten took a careful look at Himmler’s face. It was beaming with pride. Kersten could tell that Himmler was swallowing the bait wholeheartedly.

  “My dear Dr. Kersten,” Himmler said. “You are my only friend, the only one who both understands me and helps me.”

  Strike now!

  “You’re a valued friend, too, Herr Reichsführer.”

  “Good Doctor, do you realize how long it has been since anybody said that to me?”

  “Considering all the favors you have extended to so many people, all the farmers like Höss and filing clerks like Eichmann that you have chosen and elevated to their current heights, I find it strange that you would feel as though you have few friends.”

  “They would all prefer that I disappear so they could have my position,” Himmler said sadly. “My only friend is you…and perhaps Brandt.”

  “I have a favor to ask, Mein gut Freund.”

  He reached into the bottom of his portfolio and produced two small folded pieces of paper, and presented them to Himmler.

  Himmler looked down the two lists of the names given to Kersten by Diehn. “I don't think I need to ask you to explain this time, Kersten,” Himmler said resignedly. "These are obviously the names of Jews. Aryans don’t name their children Moshe or Danka or Isaak, as a rule. And what is it you would like me to do with these names?”

  “You’ve been saying for quite some time, Herr Reichsführer, that the life of the one Jew you had released from Dachau at my request was hardly remuneration enough for all I’ve done for you with my treatments. So I compiled a modest list of several others to serve as the balance of the compensation.”

  Kersten immediately regretted having said “the balance of the compensation,” just as Himmler was simultaneously lamenting his remark about one Jew’s life not being sufficient payment.

  “Modest list of several others?” Himmler repeated. “I count at least a dozen names here. You are beginning to be beyond the price range I can afford.”

  The stratagem is backfiring. I chose the wrong time. Perhaps I should have presented only one of the lists.

  Himmler summoned Brandt once again.

  “My good Brandt, please draw up an order list for the immediate release of the names designated by Dr. Kersten on these slips of paper and bring it in for me to sign.” Brandt took a quick glance at Kersten with as much of a hint of a smile that he could risk.

  Kersten didn’t hazard a smile back to Brandt in response. But he slowly let out his breath in relief.

  “You realize, I’m sure, Kersten, that it might be easier for one of my so-called ‘friends’ within the SS to take notice of a dozen Jews being released than just the one and trace it back to me. But such are the things we do for true friends, I suppose.”

  This procedure, or ones much like it, was repeated several times through the summer of 1939 and early spring of 1940. The rescue of Jews he had never met was extremely gratifying for Kersten. However, at the same time, it was also a source of acute anxiety. Himmler had supreme command, of course, in the matter of the fate of the Jews. Kersten wondered how long before Himmler’s immediate subordinates, like Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner, or perhaps even Hitler himself, began to wonder what was causing Himmler to sign pardons for all these Jews. They were not accustomed to leniency from such a quarter. Surely, they would investigate on the sly. Himmler had always demanded of his subordinates an implacable, unrelenting fury in persecution and terror. Surely, one or more of them is asking himself: Why, now, this sudden change in the Chief himself? What role does the Finnish doctor play in the Reichsführer’s unpredictable behavior?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Berlin: March 27, 1939

  Algot Niska felt relieved to be back from Poland and resettled in his Berlin flat. Smuggling Jiri Hudak out of Czechoslovakia had taxed his energy and given him a fright to boot.

  Niska wasn’t given much time for leisure and rest, however. Bruno Altmann had discovered a new vocation, too: as a broker connecting Jews in Berlin desperate to escape with Niska, who had proven several times that he as inventive enough to discover ways to save them. Altmann and Niska met several times a week at the Kakadu. Each time, Altmann would present Niska with the names of Jews who had approached him secretly and requested his help in escaping the hell that Germany was becoming.

  There was the young merchant, Hans Friedländer, wanted by the SS for purported espionage, whom he helped cross the border into Holland, and his beautiful nineteen-year-old fiancée Hella, who when she discovered Hans had fled without a word in advance to her, pleaded desperately with Niska to help her join him in Amsterdam. She told him that she had absolutely no means by which to compensate him, but that she would be eternally grateful if he helped her. Niska remembered being offended by her assumption that he wouldn’t help her escape unless she had hard currency as remuneration, as though his compassion had a fixed price.

  There was Simon Gluschner and his wife who wanted help to get to Finland. Only Simon’s eyebrows were so dark and bushy, and his wife’s face so prototypically eastern European Jewish, that they would have a hard time convincing the emigration officials on German soil that they were Finnish. So Niska found a way to neutral Portugal instead.

  Altmann had also connected the widow Ester Neumann with Niska. She wanted to be reunited with her son Josef, daughter-in-law Sarah, and toddler grandson Eli whom Niska had helped escape to Belgium. Ester had developed a serious skin disease that disfigured her feet and made it well-nigh impossible for her to walk. Niska experimented with the strategy of bribing an ambulance driver to transport her from Berlin to Brussels. He had a contact forge the proper paperwork for Ester, including a medical directive that the patient needed to undergo serious surgery that could only be performed by a Dr. Piet Vanbiesbrück in Brussels because every orthopedic surgeon in Germany had been requisitioned to treat Wehrmacht soldiers wounded in the invasion of Poland. The driver was to give the directive to the SS exit guards as well as the Belgian immigration officials on the other side of the border. Niska had held his breath anxiously back in Berlin. The following morning, however, he received a very brief, coded telephone call from the driver indicating that the bold experiment had been successful. Suddenly, Niska had a new tool in his smuggling toolbox.

  These and other adventures in the rescue of Jews were a source of tension for Niska at the time. However, whenever he had occasion to recall the faces of his “clients” and the relief and high spirits he felt on their behalf when he’d heard that they had made it safely to their destination, he concluded that the felicitous result compensated many times over for whatever risk he had taken and anxiety he had endured.

  ~~~

  The German newspapers made little mention of Hitler’s and foreign minister Ribbentropp’s diplomatic antics. True, much ink was devoted to the previous autumn’s appeasement by Chamberlain and Daladier, and the subsequent annexation of the Sudetenland. The further advance into the rest of Czechoslovakia was hardly mentioned, and when it was, Niska read the German explanation with skepticism.

  The Finnish papers, however, made no effort to shield the Finnish people from the growing threat of German expansionism and the resulting potential war that threatened to engulf most of Europe. The Helsingin Sanomat was available at a newspaper kiosk within a comfortable walk from Niska’s flat, but it was usually last Saturday’s edition, so the news he read was a week out of date. Nevertheless, the dispatches of the Sanomat correspondents in Berlin were surprisingly bold in relaying information leaked from within the Nazi government. Their anonymous sources reported that there was a growing fervor to continue expanding the German borders farther eastward. Given the relatively anemic protests from Western governments of Hitler’s appropriation of Czechoslovakia, the loy
al Nazi acolytes nodded their heads whenever Hitler suggested that there would probably be an equally feeble response by the Western democracies should Germany infiltrate their eastern neighbor Poland in the same way.

  What made the editorial staff of the Sanomat particularly anxious was the rumor of a potential non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. That the two dictators should even consider such an agreement was more than curious to Niska.

  Does such a piece of paper have a snowball’s chance in hell of lasting as long as either of them needs to take a leak? These two characters hardly have a sterling record in keeping their promises.

  If, indeed, Hitler had his sights set on Poland, the pact made sense, the editorialists maintained, because it might pave the way for Hitler to march into Poland without Russian military interference.

  Sanomat correspondents reported that apparently the Hitler-Stalin treaty effectively divided Europe into so-called “zones of influence,” with Finland squarely in the Soviet sphere of “influence.” Niska was both confused and dubious.

  Now, what in the hell do they mean by “a zone of influence?” Stalin has wanted to get his dirty paws on Finland again since we kicked them in the ass in 1917. This so-called pact might just guarantee that the Krauts will look the other way while Stalin sneaks back into Finland from the east. Not good news.

  But Niska was stupefied by the obliviousness of the residents of Berlin regarding the potential for war. The non-Jewish residents, that is. To be sure, the German population was still resentful, to say the least, about the punishment inflicted on Germany by the victors through the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. But more recently, life went on for most non-Jewish Berliners much as before, except that the employment rate had improved almost exponentially in the six years since Hitler had become Chancellor. The insanely rampant inflation of the previous decade had been tamed. Niska found the general population to be quite content. The cabarets were still filled to overflowing, even on weeknights. The liquor flowed freely. Decisions made at Hitler’s headquarters on Wilhelmstrasse were totally unknown. Sure, certain violent acts against Jews occurred regularly, but that was the Jews’ concern, not that of “real” Germans.

  Shortly after his return from Poland, his physician, Dr. Singer, discovered that the source of increasing pain in Niska’s abdomen was a stomach ulcer. Using a fake identity, Niska was hospitalized as Sven Ovesen in a small clinic in Charlottenburg near Dr. Singer’s office.

  Once word circulated throughout Charlottenburg that the goy patient in the clinic named Sven Ovesen was, in fact, Algot Niska, several relatives of Jews he had helped escape came to visit and express their concern for him. Niska received his visitors graciously, even though their visits put him in greater risk. For one thing, there might be a Nazi collaborator among the Jews who had learned of his new identity, and would pass the information on to the SS. Or just the fact that there were Jews visiting this Swede named Ovesen might not be overlooked by the SS. If, as he feared, he was being monitored by the SS, these prominent Jews would be putting themselves in great danger, incriminating themselves, in effect. Hell, they were in danger in any case.

  The flowers and sweets that his visitors brought to Niska he routinely passed on to Singer’s nine- or ten-year-old daughter, Angelika. Angelika sometimes tagged along on her widower father’s rounds in the hospital. She would wander back to Niska’s bedside where she knew she would be given either flowers or candies. In return, she would pass on bits of news to Niska about others she knew in the Jewish community, especially ones she had heard about that were escorted from their residences by the SS or Gestapo.

  One afternoon, when Angelika came by his bedside, Niska asked her why she wasn’t in school at that time of the day.

  “Don’t you know, Herr Niska? I haven’t been at school since the awful burning of synagogues and smashing of store widows this past November. The laws were changed so that we Jewish pupils could no longer go to the public schools.”

  “Oh, my, you’re right. I should have known that. I’m not surprised, though. What about attending one of the Jewish schools?”

  “Herr Niska, you’re so silly. How can I go to a Jewish school when the three of them in my neighborhood were burned down that noisy night when I couldn’t sleep? Our rabbi holds class in his flat, but that is only for boys. So my father tries to teach me at home, but lately he’s been so busy with new patients who have lost their regular doctor.”

  It was from Angelika that Niska learned about the accumulation of indignities and humiliation visited upon Angelika’s friends and other Jewish children. They were no longer allowed to visit movie theaters; they were prohibited from riding on the streetcars, and the swings in the playgrounds were reserved for the exclusive use by gentile German children.

  Niska wondered why she seemed to have few objections about having to wear a yellow Star of David on her coat. In fact, she wore it as a badge of honor.

  “Daddy says that no matter what the Germans say about us, we are as good as they are. In some things, even better. I had better grades in school than any of the pure children.”

  Nonetheless, sometimes when she came to visit, Niska could detect that she had been crying not long before entering his room. One time, she came into his room, her blouse torn to shreds.

  Quite concerned, Niska asked, “My dear girl, what in the world happened to you?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. I ripped it accidentally when I tried to climb a fence.”

  Angelika tried to smile. But she couldn’t hold back the tears. She turned away from Niska to hide her embarrassment.

  These children, thousands of them, are all behind a fence, as it were, kept out from a wonderful world, only because they are Jewish. God damn these Nazis, many of whom are rewarded with titles and medals for dreaming up new infernal laws every day, it seems.

  When Niska was close to being discharged, Angelika returned his favors and brought him a handful of wildflowers. Niska was deeply touched by the humble gift and the love it expressed. They were just about to begin their usual friendly conversation about whatever was on the child’s mind. They were interrupted by a very loud conversation in the corridor beyond the closed door.

  Angelika quickly put her index finger on her lips as a signal for Niska to keep absolutely quiet. She tiptoed to the door. A centimeter at a time, she opened the door very slowly and quietly and took a furtive peek up and down the hallway.

  This child is not unfamiliar with unpleasant surprises. How often has the poor girl experienced or heard about brutal house searches by the SS? She knows that something evil could befall us at any second.

  She returned to Niska’s bedside and leaned her little body toward him.

  “I think they are some kind of soldiers or policemen,” she whispered. “They are wearing uniforms.” She noted the unfamiliar look of alarm on Niska’s face, and added, “My father has told me that you have done good things for Jewish people and that you may be in trouble.”

  Niska’s brain shifted into high gear. He understood immediately that it was for him that the soldiers—most likely the SS—had come to the clinic. He asked Angelika to stay posted at the door while he, with some effort to hold back pain, slipped on socks and shoes, and then his coat over the hospital gown he was wearing.

  “They’ve gone into the nurses’ office,” she informed him.

  They sneaked stealthily out the door into the corridor. They could see that the door to the nurses’ office had been left wide open. Niska deduced that the agents were checking the nurses’ log. At any moment, they would come out of the office into the corridor.

  What could Niska and Angelika do? The way to the exit meant passing by the nurses’ office. Where can we go? Think quickly, Algot! For your own sake, but mainly for hers.

  Niska grabbed Angelika’s hand and they sneaked toward the door leading to the back stairs used by the cleaning and maintenance staff. Before they could reach the door, they heard the sound of heavy foots
teps coming out of the nurses’ office. Niska quickly pushed open the door to the bathroom and dragged Angelika in with him before they were spotted.

  For the moment, it was silent in the corridor. Quite possibly, Niska conjectured, the soldiers were still nearby, listening for the sound of footsteps—Niska’s and Angelika’s footsteps, or other movements. He and Angelika were like mice in a trap without an escape route. They heard the sound of male voices apparently talking to one of the nurses.

  “He could be anyone among the male patients,” a deep voice said. “We must question all of them one by one.” Then, raising his voice to the level of a shout, “Nurse, lock all the doors to the patients’ rooms.”

  It’s only a matter of time before we’re discovered here.

  Just then, Niska was surprised by the initiative of the little girl. Hurriedly, she reached for the faucet on the bathtub and began to run the water that came out in a rush. She took off her blouse, and then the rest of her clothing.

  Niska felt immensely self-conscious, even though this was a pre-pubescent girl he was observing. He looked into Angelika’s eyes with a look of comprehension mixed with admiration.

  Without losing a split second, Angelika jumped into the bathtub and submerged her body up to her neck in the hot water.

  In just several seconds, Angelika rose from the water and stepped out of the tub. Niska handed her a large towel with which she began drying herself urgently.

  Steps out in the corridor were closing in toward the bathroom. Niska stepped into one of the stalls, and climbed up onto the toilet seat so that his feet would not be seen underneath the stall door.

  “Was gibt es da?” What is there? The voice was coming from just beyond the bathroom door.