Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  “Is there some safer way for us?” Herbert asked.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Brother Stoltz said, “that we all ought to get out of Germany. It’s very dangerous—but it’s taking one great chance, and then we would all be free.”

  “How could we do that?” Sister Stoltz asked.

  “I can make new papers for all of us. There’s an office in our building that issues travel passes. Sometimes military officers have taken vacations in Switzerland, and they receive permission to take their families. Maybe I could pass Herbert and Hannah off as my son and daughter-in-law. I’m not certain the travel office would approve that, but it’s worth trying to find out.”

  Peter had been listening quietly all this time, and Brother Stoltz saw how nervous he was becoming. “Papa, how could you pretend to be a military officer?”

  “I don’t know.” Brother Stoltz slid his chair back a little, and he folded his arms over his chest. “If I could get hold of the proper forms—so I could create a new identity—I could claim to be a wounded or injured officer who needs rest in the Alps. It’s been done before. The problem is, I don’t have travel forms in my own office. I would have to find a way to steal some.”

  “It’s too great a chance,” Sister Stoltz said. “It could be that one mistake that would destroy us all.”

  “Or our only chance.”

  “But why, Heinrich? Why can’t we continue as we are?”

  Brother Stoltz hadn’t wanted to say so much, but he decided it was probably time to do so. “Tell them, Peter,” he said.

  Peter leaned on the table with his elbows, and he looked at his plate. “At Hitler Youth, our leader told us that a new plan is coming. Whole battle groups will be called directly from Hitler Youth into the army. It could happen this year.”

  “But you’re only sixteen,” Sister Stoltz said.

  “Even younger boys might be called,” Peter said. “Fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds. This is what our leader says, and most of the boys are eager to go.”

  “Hitler is running out of troops,” Brother Stoltz said. “The BBC says that he’s lost a million men in Russia—killed or captured—and he’s occupying too many countries. He needs more troops to fight the Americans and British, who will certainly be attacking across the English channel this year. Some say he will soon be drafting older men. I could be called up, too.”

  “Not with your injuries.”

  “Frieda, don’t you understand what I’m telling you? If I’m called up, my identity won’t hold up. Nor will Peter’s. I made him a year younger on his false papers, but that won’t help now. I haven’t wanted to say too much until I looked further into the possibilities, but the fact is, our only chance may be to get out of Germany—if I can find a way.”

  No one said a word, and Brother Stoltz hated what he saw in all the faces. He wanted to believe that somehow he could save everyone, but what he was beginning to feel was that he had led them into a trap he couldn’t get them out of.

  “I suspect, for you, Herbert and Hannah,” he added, “that it might be better to separate your futures from ours.”

  “Herr Niemeyer, I feel good about our chances with you. You have access to papers, and you are planning carefully.”

  “I think, however, we should get you somewhere else for a time. I know that a Gestapo agent has searched for us in Berlin and lost our track, but it wouldn’t take much for him to locate us again, and if he did, you see the danger.”

  “Moving is also dangerous.”

  “Yes. I know. Let’s see what we can do.”

  The silence returned. All this was so wearing: the never-ending worry for one’s existence and the constant dread for the children. Even little Benjamin sat wide-eyed and apprehensive, as though he understood the peril he was in.

  During the following week Brother Stoltz intensified his effort. With so many deaths in the military all the time, it was hard for the bureaucracy to keep up with the creation and retirement of personal identity numbers. A man named Max Ingelstadt, an Oberstleutnant—a rank comparable to a captain—had died in Russia, but Brother Stoltz had found his papers in a file that had been misplaced and never processed. He used the name Ingelstadt to create papers for his family even though the officer had actually had four sons and no daughters. A thorough check would reveal the falsehood of the papers, but what Brother Stoltz needed was only a set of papers that would get his family across a border, where such a thorough check might not occur as long as he had travel papers.

  Doing something for the Rosenbaums was more complicated. Herbert, too, needed a military background, or there would be no explaining someone his age not serving. He was also a little old to be Brother Stoltz’s son. He was not too old to be Ingelstadt’s son, however, and Brother Stoltz was sure he could pass for being a few years older. Still, papers that would allow both to leave the country might be questionable. What Brother Stoltz needed was to get his hands on some actual travel papers so he could see what regulations might be involved.

  Brother Stoltz had to be very careful. On a couple of occasions he dropped by and tried to chat with an older woman who worked in the office that granted travel passes, but he found her stiff and unresponsive. Finally, he decided he would have to take a more direct approach. He stopped by one afternoon and said, “Frau Schaeffer, I have a man in my office who asked me a question I couldn’t answer. Perhaps you can help me.”

  “I can try.” She looked up from her desk, which was neatly arranged. Around her were extensive shelves filled with the large binders used to file official papers or to store forms.

  “This man has returned from the Russian front, wounded. His personal papers were lost, and I’m taking care of that, but his doctor has advised him to take a rest cure for a few weeks. He asked whether he could possibly travel to the Swiss Alps, and I told him I would ask what the requirements were for travel of this kind.”

  “There’s no need for it. He can go to the Black Forest. We aren’t approving foreign travel—not without some overriding need for it.”

  “Such as?”

  Frau Schaeffer was clearly annoyed. “One can rest here in Germany,” she said.

  “Yes. But it seems he knows an officer who took holiday in Switzerland—so he believes it’s possible.”

  “I’ll tell you how that happens. It’s the high-ranking men who make these special arrangements. Someone knows someone. And then we get a phone call, and some general tells my supervisor to grant such a pass. Otherwise, it’s only for business or military demands that these passes are granted.”

  “Maybe he knows someone.”

  “Don’t tell him I said that. Tell him merely that he should not give it another thought.”

  “What sort of forms must be processed? Are there request papers he can fill out just on the chance that—”

  “No.” Frau Schaeffer took her wire-rim eyeglasses off and set them on her desk. “Herr Niemeyer, such a request will not be granted. I told you this. We have forms here.” She reached to the right of her desk and patted the spine of a binder. “But it wouldn’t matter what he said; I will not grant such a pass—nor will my supervisor.”

  “Unless he knows someone who can make a phone call.”

  “I told you already—”

  “Ja, ja. I know.” Brother Stoltz laughed, and then he left. But what he had learned was important. He needed the form, and then he needed official stamps and signatures. At the border, no one would have to know why the papers were approved; the important thing was, occasionally they were approved.

  For the next few days, he took every opportunity to walk by Frau Schaeffer’s office, and he learned something about her routine. She rarely left her desk, but when she did, she asked an assistant to come out from a back room and sit in her place. The chances of getting into the shelves didn’t look promising. Brother Stoltz was beginning to think he might as well forget that possibility, but then one day he heard air-raid sirens—something that hadn’t happened often in the d
aytime lately. He hurried from his office, down the stairs, and to the travel office. He stepped through the door and said, “Did you hear the siren, Frau Schaeffer?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m leaving.” She was filing away a slip of paper in one of her desk drawers.

  “Did those in the back room hear the siren?”

  “I’m sure they did.”

  “Let me make certain.” Brother Stoltz walked to the door at the back of Frau Schaeffer’s office. He pulled it open and called, “Air raid. Did you hear the siren?”

  Two young women were already walking toward the door. “Yes, of course,” they said, in the same terse voice their boss always used. Brother Stoltz was simply not seeing the opportunity he wanted. He held the door for them and tried to stall. By now, the supervisor had come out of his office. “I have enough to do without this,” he mumbled.

  The supervisor walked to the main office door and held it open as everyone filed out. He gave Brother Stoltz a curious glance, but he said nothing. Brother Stoltz waited until last, walked to the door, and then stopped in the doorway. “Oh, my goodness,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  Brother Stoltz hesitated. “I can’t believe I did that.” He was stalling, letting Frau Schaeffer and the two young women reach the stairway.

  “Please. Come out.”

  “I just brought a form to Frau Schaeffer, but now it occurs to me, I needed one more signature. I must take it back.”

  “Yes, of course. Come back after—”

  “Let me pick it up now. Then I won’t forget later. I’m afraid I do forget things.” He laughed and continued to stand in the doorway. Then he turned. “Let me see. I believe she put it right here.” He stepped to her desk but stood rubbing his chin.

  “Please. Hurry.”

  “All right. Let’ see . . .”

  “Pull the door shut when you come out,” the man said, and he let the door go shut as he hurried to the stairs.

  Brother Stoltz took a deep breath of relief. He stepped to the shelf, pulled down the binder Frau Schaeffer had pointed to on his previous visit, and got out two copies of the travel forms he needed. He folded them neatly and tucked them inside his suit coat, and then he hurried out of the office and down the stairs to the basement. He made certain that Frau Schaeffer and her boss saw him there, but he didn’t approach them. He didn’t want the supervisor to say anything that might give him away.

  When the warning ended—without anyone hearing any bombs drop—Brother Stoltz hurried back to his office, and there he filled in the necessary information on the travel forms. What he lacked, of course, was a signature of approval and an official stamp. He would need to see the supervisor’s signature so he could forge it, and he needed access to the stamp that Frau Schaeffer surely kept control of. That was going to be a much bigger challenge.

  Another week went by, and in spite of Brother Stoltz’s many attempts to observe the goings-on in the travel office, he saw no likely way into Frau Schaeffer’s desk. The one thing he couldn’t do was get in a hurry and make a mistake. He had to trust that if he kept watching and kept his patience, he would find a way.

  He was working at his desk one morning when an elderly man came in to obtain new papers. “My wallet was stolen,” the man said. “I believe Jews are doing this. They will do almost anything to get Christian identification papers.”

  Brother Stoltz handed the man a set of forms. “You must fill these out,” he said.

  The man was elderly and thin, with white hair and a yellowish mustache. He took a look at the papers and said, “I must give you all this information? I can’t remember so much.”

  “You may take the papers with you. Perhaps someone can help you—or maybe you write such things in your family Bible.”

  “Yes, yes. And then another trip here again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The man stared at Brother Stoltz for a moment. On his desk was a nameplate that said, “Niemeyer.” “I know some Niemeyer’s in the west part of the city. Is that where you’re from?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What’s your Christian name?”

  “Horst.”

  “Is that so? I knew a Horst Niemeyer. He was killed in a bombing raid. He and his family. Are you related to that one?”

  “No. It’s a common enough name.”

  The man nodded. “I suppose so,” he mumbled. “What if I can’t answer every single question on this paper? What then?”

  “Get some help. I’m sure all the information is available. You may have to go to the city records department.”

  “Oh, what nonsense,” the man mumbled, and then he left.

  But from the back office, where the door was open, Brother Stoltz heard his boss say, “Horst, come here a moment.”

  Something in his tone was wrong; Brother Stoltz felt an alarm go off inside him. He walked to the door. “Yes?” he said.

  “Sit down. I need to relieve my mind of a concern.”

  “Certainly.” Brother Stoltz sat down.

  “What this man said just now—that a Horst Niemeyer died with his family. He said it was on the west side, and that is where you were bombed. No?”

  “Doch. That is true.”

  “Is it possible that another Horst Niemeyer was also bombed, and this one died with his family—just as our records showed?”

  “I suppose so, Herr Lindermann. Or maybe this man had the name wrong. He was quite old.”

  Herr Lindermann stared at Brother Stoltz. “There are other things wrong. I noticed long ago that your dialect isn’t right. Your papers say you were from the east, from Dresden, I think.”

  “Yes. But I also lived in Frankfurt for a time.”

  “You never mentioned that before.”

  “I try not to think much about the past.”

  Lindermann seemed nervous. His voice was tighter than usual, and he had begun to tap his pencil across the palm of his hand. “There is something else. One day, I heard you tell a man, ‘Yes, that’s what my wife tells me.’ But you have no wife.”

  “It was a slip of the tongue, I suppose. I should have said that she always told me that.”

  “Maybe. That’s what I thought at the time. But there are too many things I don’t understand. You seem an educated man—perhaps a university man. You can’t hide that, and yet you tell me that you only attended trade school.”

  “I like to read. That’s all.”

  Lindermann continued to tap the pencil. “I don’t like this,” he said. “This isn’t adding up. I don’t want an impostor right under my nose here—not in this office, of all places.”

  “Certainly. I understand how careful you must be.”

  “What if I call in the Gestapo or the SD—and have them question you? Would you be afraid of that?”

  “No. Of course not. I have no reason to be afraid.”

  “Good.” He picked up the phone. “You understand, I must cover myself. If you are caught here, I’m in great trouble.”

  Brother Stoltz waited, just to see whether Lindermann was bluffing, but he was dialing. “Wait a moment,” he finally said.

  Lindermann stopped, thought for a moment, and then put down the phone. “Yes?”

  “It might be better for both of us if I disappear. As you say, you could also be in trouble.”

  Lindermann looked thunderstruck, his face suddenly white. “Horst, what have you done to me?”

  “Give me a little time and then report that I haven’t shown up for work. I’ll get far away by then. If you say nothing of these other matters, they will have no reason to check on me. I would merely be a missing person.”

  “Are you a Jew?”

  “No. Give me time to leave. That’s all I ask of you.”

  “How do I know what you have been doing here? You have access to all sorts of official papers.” Lindermann stood up.

  “I’ve done nothing that would hurt anyone. My conscience is clear about that.”

  “What does that me
an?” He reached for the phone again.

  “Please. Let me leave.”

  “I like you, Horst. You’ve done good work for me. But I can’t protect you. I’m not willing to die for you.”

  Brother Stoltz got up. “Just let me go. And give me some time.” Lindermann was still holding the phone. He didn’t promise anything. “Please. I do have a family. Let us get away, and we’ll hurt nothing, no one. Please.”

  Brother Stoltz walked from the office. But his mind was running fast, and he was already organizing his next steps. He stepped to his desk, pulled out a drawer, and reached under some old files where he had hidden the travel papers. He thought immediately of some false identity papers he had been working on. He didn’t want them discovered, so he grabbed those, too, and he stuffed everything into his pockets. He also had a set of identity papers for his family in case something like this happened. He pulled out a drawer and got those. Lindermann had not followed him, but certainly he could hear him going through his desk.

  Lindermann wasn’t telephoning—not yet—and that was a hopeful sign. Brother Stoltz had to get home; he had to warn the Rosenbaums—get them out. Then he had to find his family, and somehow they all had to lose themselves in this city again.

  But his thoughts stopped there. Now, more than ever, he had to get his family out of Germany, and that meant he had to have the proper stamps on his travel papers. He hurried down the stairs. A plan, one he had thought of before and rejected, was taking shape as a last-chance approach.

  He marched into the office and stopped in front of Frau Schaeffer. “You’ve done it this time,” he said. “I’m angry, but Mauer, downstairs in the Anmeldung office, wants your head.”

  “What are you talking about?”