Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  “You can’t shove things past us, no matter how long you’ve worked here.”

  “I’ve done no such thing.”

  “Tell that to Mauer. He’s calling your boss. He says he’s going to have you fired.”

  She was aghast, her face and neck suddenly blazoned red, but he could also see the bewilderment in her eyes.

  “If you deny it, I would talk to him this minute—before he calls. Walk down there with me right now.”

  “I have nothing to deny. I—”

  “Then come with me. Let’s talk this out, for once.”

  She stood up, considered for a moment, and then stepped to the door to the back office. “Please come out here, one of you,” she called, and she stormed from the office.

  Brother Stoltz followed her to the stairway, but then he stopped. “I’ll catch up with you. Just one moment.”

  He let her walk down a few steps, and then he dashed back to her office, hurried past her desk, and opened the door. “Never mind,” he called to the young women in the back. “Frau Schaeffer is helping me. She came back.”

  One of the women was on her way to the door. “What is wrong out there?” she said, and stopped. Brother Stoltz pulled the door shut, and then he stepped to the desk. He wanted to work furiously, but he couldn’t leave a trail and let anyone know what he had done. He pulled open several binders until he found what he needed: one that was full of papers signed by the supervisor. He extracted one from the middle of the binder, neatly, and put the binder back. Then he stuffed the sheet in his pocket.

  Now he needed the official stamp. He opened the top drawer, saw nothing, but pulled out the deep side drawer and saw the box immediately. Every German office had a stamp to press an official symbol into government papers. He wanted to grab the thing and run, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He pulled the box out, took out the stamp, got the papers from his suit coat pocket, and stamped them both. Then he put everything back as it had been, and he shut the drawer. He walked from the office, down the stairs, half expecting to meet Frau Schaeffer coming up, but he didn’t, and suddenly he was outside, with one impossibility taken care of and so many more still ahead.

  Chapter 22

  Brother Stoltz hurried down the street to a hotel that had so far survived the bombings. Taxis sometimes waited there. He would normally have taken a bus, but he had to hurry now. He was leaving a trail, perhaps, but it didn’t matter. Lindermann had his address. The point was to get there before Lindermann lost his nerve and made the call.

  A taxi was waiting, as it turned out, and the driver made the midafternoon drive quickly, even though he had to take a route around a bomb-damaged part of the city. In the taxi Brother Stoltz continued to work on his plan. He had recently walked past the bombed-out area where he and his family had hidden the year before. The block had been cleared of most of the debris, and the standing walls of the buildings had been knocked down, but the basements were intact, and it was still a good spot to hide. He decided to tell the Rosenbaums to get out of the apartment and wait in a park, or somewhere inconspicuous. He could do that in a moment and then head to Peter’s school. Peter could go after Anna, and he, himself, would find his wife. Everyone would meet that night.

  Brother Stoltz had the driver stop one street away from his apartment. He paid the man and then hurried away, but he thought better of running and forced himself to walk. He was watching for Gestapo agents, but he saw nothing. And then he reached the corner by his apartment, stopped, and peeked around. Instantly he threw himself back around the corner, against the building. In front of his apartment house was a man in a dark leather coat.

  What now? Was the Gestapo already in the apartment? He had to hope that the Rosenbaums were safe in the attic. No one was looking for them. The Stoltzes would be the only ones being sought at the moment. Maybe the Rosenbaums could stay put until the Gestapo or SD, or whoever it was, had given up on the family coming back. Then he could sneak back and find them. But all too often, now, the Rosenbaums stayed in the apartment during the day so Benjamin wouldn’t be so cooped up.

  Or maybe that man in the coat was not what he seemed. Brother Stoltz took another look, but when he did, he was stunned. The man he had seen before was crossing the street, and two men had just come out of the building. They each had one of the Rosenbaums by the arm, and Herbert was carrying Benjamin, who was crying and clinging to his father.

  Brother Stoltz stepped out from behind the building in full view of the men. He thought of bolting toward them, trying to fight them all. He wished for a gun, for help, for some way to stop this. But one of the men turned toward him, and Brother Stoltz knew he had to get away, go help his own family. And so he turned, and as best he could, he ran.

  Brother Stoltz knew that he had to think fast. He ran halfway down the block and cut left into an alley behind his apartment house. Then he did the last thing the agents would expect him to do. He entered his own building through the back and hurried down the stairs to the basement. He slipped into a little storage area and hid in a dark corner.

  He had made a good choice for the moment. There was no way he could have outrun those men. But now he was trapped. If more agents were being called in, some might keep a watch on the house. He had the feeling that his best chance might be to get out the front door now that the agents were probably searching in the back, and so he took a bold move. He waited long enough to catch his breath, and then he walked up the stairs and strode to the front entrance. Another man was standing out front. Brother Stoltz walked out, looked at the man, and said, “Good day.”

  “Excuse me,” the agent said. “Do you know Herr Niemeyer?”

  “Yes. Of course. He lives upstairs.”

  “Have you seen him today?”

  “Yes. I saw him leave for work. He leaves about the same time every morning.”

  “But not since then?”

  “No. What’s going on?”

  “It doesn’t concern you.”

  “That’s fine. Good day, Mein Herr.” And Brother Stoltz walked away, slowly, casually, even though he wanted more than anything to run. When he reached the corner he crossed the street, and then, once out of sight, he hurried to the next corner, where he caught a bus to Peter’s school. It was only a few blocks down the street, and he got there quickly. He knew he had to gather his family as fast as possible. Lindermann knew nothing of his wife or children, but the Gestapo would be asking questions, and they would certainly try to track his family down once they got information from others in the apartment house.

  At the school Brother Stoltz spoke to a woman in the headmaster’s office, asked that his son be called out of class—because of an emergency. And once he had Peter outside, he told him, “Go to Anna, quickly. Hide out somewhere for the day, and then, after dark, go back to the basement where we hid last year. Make sure no one is watching before you enter, even if you have to wait until very late.”

  “Papa, what’s happened?”

  “Never mind. I can tell you everything later. For now, hurry to Anna.”

  “Will I be able to go to school? Can I—”

  “Please, just hurry.”

  Peter nodded, but Brother Stoltz saw how crushed he was. Peter’s life was falling apart one more time. He took a few steps away and then turned back. “Papa, what about the Rosenbaums? Are they all right?”

  Brother Stoltz couldn’t look Peter in the eye. “They’ve been taken,” he whispered.

  “Benjamin?”

  “Yes.” Brother Stoltz saw Peter’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m sorry,” he told him. “But please, you must hurry, or we will all be caught.”

  Peter dashed away.

  Brother Stoltz wished he could move as quickly. He had to take another bus, and then he had to ask, very calmly, for his wife, and once again, he had to tell her that all their troubles had returned, that they were back where they had started.

  Brother Stoltz knew he had to make one more contact. He was not without help this t
ime. He had a telephone number and a code word. He called the number from a telephone station in a post office, and he heard the voice of his underground contact. “The packages you left with me have been removed,” he said.

  A long silence followed. “Do you think they are lost?” finally came the question.

  “Yes. Taken away.”

  “Have the senders been traced?”

  “No. But the receivers are known.”

  “Perhaps it’s time to call a meeting. Have you time today?”

  “Yes. In the place where we spoke before.”

  “At the accustomed time?”

  “Yes.”

  And so Brother Stoltz took his wife to the little park where he and his contact had sometimes met. It was after four when they arrived, and the contact would be coming at six. The time passed slowly, and after the hurried discussion in the beginning, there was little to say to his wife. Brother Stoltz knew how much she was grieving for the Rosenbaums, and he saw that her courage was giving way. They had been through too much. He knew she—and he—couldn’t survive much more of this.

  Brother Stoltz also had time now to blame himself. He thought of Benjamin, hardly more than a baby, and dependent on him for his life. What could he have done differently? Why hadn’t he moved the Rosenbaums to another hiding place as he had always expected to do? Maybe he shouldn’t have stayed with his job so long but used his papers to move to the country somewhere. All these people were under his protection, and his mistakes were turning destructive, maybe even fatal.

  As six o’clock approached he strolled to a little pond, where he watched the ducks and swans. When a man stood a few feet away, Brother Stoltz didn’t look at him.

  “It’s a nice day for the ducks,” the man said.

  “Yes. They seem to be well fed.”

  “Go to your assigned location. Tomorrow morning, at four, a milk wagon will pick you up. Come out quickly and get into the back. Cover yourselves and wait. We’ll get you out of Berlin.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Was it Gestapo?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “How did they know?”

  “They didn’t know. But my false identity was discovered. They went to look for me—and found them.”

  “We took too great a chance this time. But we couldn’t help it. There are so few who dare to help us now.”

  “Will they die?”

  “Maybe not. They’re young and strong. The Nazis will surely put them to work for now.”

  “What about the little boy?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. But good luck to you. Thank you for helping.”

  “I made mistakes.”

  “We all make mistakes.” He turned and ambled along the pond for a time and then walked away.

  Brother Stoltz walked back to his wife and sat down by her on a bench. “They will pick us up early in the morning and get us out of Berlin,” he said.

  “Pick us up where?”

  “At our hiding place—in the basement. It’s the place where I told them I would be if anything ever went wrong.”

  “Where will we go?”

  Brother Stoltz heard his wife’s lifelessness, her desolation. He knew he had to sound confident. “I don’t know exactly,” he said. “But we’ll be better off outside Berlin.”

  “Do we have to wait now?”

  “Yes. Until after dark.”

  “I’m so afraid for Anna and Peter.”

  And that, of course, was what Brother Stoltz was also thinking. It had been a warm April day, but now, with the sun angling lower in the sky and a breeze coming up, he felt the cold. It would be uncomfortable in the basement that night; he was glad they would not have to stay long. But he wished he could hurry there now and see for himself that his children were safe.

  It was after nine o’clock, however, when Brother Stoltz and his wife walked down the street to their hiding place. They walked by once and looked about for observers, and then they came back and hurried around the remnant of the old building and entered through the back stairway. Peter and Anna were not there. “I told them to wait until late,” Brother Stoltz said. “I was being cautious. But don’t worry. I’m sure they’re fine. They know how to handle these things.”

  Still, however, Brother Stoltz was more worried than he admitted. He and his wife sat on the old couch, in the dark, and they listened and waited. They talked a little at times, but mostly about Peter and Anna and what they might be doing. It was almost eleven o’clock when they finally heard footsteps. “Anna. Peter,” Brother Stoltz called out.

  “Yes. We’re here,” came the answer.

  “Oh, thank God,” Sister Stoltz said.

  “Yes. Yes. That is exactly what we must do,” Brother Stoltz told her.

  And so, once the children were inside, the four knelt together, and Brother Stoltz did thank the Lord for delivering them one more time. And he asked that all would go well in their escape the next morning. Then he prayed for the Rosenbaums, that somehow they might survive.

  After the prayer, he explained what was happening, and he told the children to get some sleep while they waited.

  “Papa,” Anna said, “can’t anyone help Herbert and Hannah—and Benjamin?”

  “My friend in the underground told me that the SS will use them as workers.”

  “What about Benjamin?” Peter asked. “They wouldn’t kill a little boy, would they?”

  “No. I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Heinrich,” Sister Stoltz said, “we have no proof that Jews are being killed. It’s all rumors. I still don’t think German people would do such a thing—not even Nazis.”

  Brother Stoltz didn’t know for sure either. But the reports were very convincing. “Let’s hope the rumors are wrong,” he told his wife, and then he added, “This was my fault. Herr Lindermann figured out that I wasn’t who I said I was.”

  “You couldn’t help that,” Sister Stoltz said. “You were fortunate to last as long as you did.”

  Brother Stoltz looked into the dark, not toward the voice. “I’ve never wanted to kill, but if I could have killed those men today and saved the Rosenbaums, I would have done it. I stood there, powerless, with absolutely no way to stop them.”

  “You would be dead now had you tried to do anything.”

  “I know. I knew that then, and I knew I had to get to all of you. But it doesn’t change how I feel. I’m tired of this helplessness. I want to fight back.”

  “Others can do the fighting,” Anna said. “Hitler is losing his war. At least when it’s over, we’ll know we tried to help.”

  “Yes, of course,” Brother Stoltz said, but it was not what he was thinking. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until he did something more.

  At four in the morning the Stoltzes were waiting and watching, huddled close to the ground in the dark. They heard the old milk wagon coming long before they saw it. It was a horse-drawn wagon, and the horses’ hooves made a resounding noise on the cobblestones. As the wagon came nearer, the Stoltzes moved out to the street, and then, as soon as it stopped, they all scrambled into the back.

  “Lie down,” the driver whispered. “I’ll cover you at my first stop.”

  And so the Stoltzes lay in the back and listened and waited as the two big horses clip-clopped down the street. It was a slow way to escape, and nerve-racking, but Brother Stoltz had no question that the underground planned such things carefully.

  After a time the driver stopped the wagon and got down. Then he appeared at the back. “Lie flat,” he said. “I’m going to cover you over with boards. I’ll be stacking milk cans on top. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of air, and there’s not much danger anyone will check us. Just don’t make any noise, and don’t panic if someone does decide to look in the back. We have to pass through a guard station, but it’s not a big concern.”

  The man sounded rather old, and certainly experienced, but the hiding place would be obvious to anyone who checked ver
y carefully. Brother Stoltz hoped he hadn’t gotten his family into another mess.

  The man put the boards in place, leaving no space at all to move. Then the wagon jostled as the driver piled milk cans on top of the boards.

  Four more stops followed, and each time, the driver thumped more milk cans onto the boards. Eventually Brother Stoltz could feel a bending board press a little against his chest. He felt almost claustrophobic, closed in that way. He knew that if anything went wrong, he wouldn’t have a chance to make a move to save his family.

  He could feel his wife on one side of him, close, and Peter on the other. Both breathed regularly, but not with the relaxed sound of someone resting. No one said a word. And then, finally, the horse’s hooves slowed, and Brother Stoltz heard the driver say, “Good morning.”

  Outside, from a distance, a muffled voice said, “What do you have?”

  “Milk. The same as I do every morning.”

  The voice was closer to the wagon when it sounded again. “Get down. We must check in the back.”

  Another voice, still in the distance, said, “It’s only old Engelmann. He comes through every morning.”

  “Yes. That’s true,” the driver said, and he laughed. “I haul milk to the creamery down the road—every day, God willing.”

  “We still must check. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Certainly. It’s not a problem.”

  Brother Stoltz felt the wagon shift a little as the old man climbed down. And then he heard the canvas cover at the back of the wagon, as someone tossed it aside. What Brother Stoltz knew was that even in the dark, it would be easy to see that with the false floor, the cans sat too high.

  “I guess you get all the milk you want,” the driver said. “That’s one thing good about being away from the war front.”

  “We never get milk,” the guard said. “Not even a little to have with the mush they serve us.”

  “You mean you have to eat your mush dry?”

  “Yes. We certainly do.”

  “What a pity. That’s one thing I always have enough of—plenty of milk. I wouldn’t say that I pour a little out for myself from time to time—since you might report me—but it seems to come from somewhere.” His laugh came from deep in his throat, and it set him off coughing.