“Who would do this to children?” She wobbled.
“Put your head between your knees.” Pasha coaxed as he rubbed her back.
“Can you imagine your child kidnapped and then...” Slim thought about Tiny and then she took a deep breath. “I just can’t wrap my head around how any of this could have happened.”
“That’s why democracy is so important, Slim. In a democratic society, there are rules and principles we must live by,” Pasha said, helping Slim stand up.
“But you lived under the Tsar, a monarchy,” Slim said.
“I live under a monarchy now, albeit a constitutional one. There is something to be said about actually voting for a representative and having him…”
“Or her,” Slim interjected.
“Or her,” Pasha smiled. “And having them work for the people and not themselves.”
“I haven’t lived in America since Roosevelt died, but our democracy is the one thing I’ve always loved about it. Don’t get me wrong, it is imperfect,” Slim said, remembering what Felice told her about the murder of Negroes in the South and the systematic discrimination in the North.
“Ah, America, the world’s great experiment; ‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me; I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’” Pasha sighed.
“I hope it stays that way,” Slim said.
They met Krzysztof on the way back and the three of them decided to head out to Katowice straight away as it would take less than two hours to get there.
“How was your walk around the palace?” Slim asked Krzysztof.
“It was as you would expect: bitter and sweet. I often wonder what the world would have been like if the first war had not happened. Would we have been frozen in time? War creates industrial and technological advancements. Perhaps it is a needed growing pain for the world. Society cannot exist in peace.”
“Slim, darling, do you mind if I speak to my cousin in Polish? There is something of a delicate nature I wish to discuss with him,” Pasha asked, turning around to Slim who was in the back seat.
“No, not at all. It will give me a chance to look at my notebook.”
With the Slavic cadence in the background, Slim examined her notes. Karol had not been killed in Auschwitz. That had been confirmed by Wilhelm Brasse. So, as she suspected, Müller had led her down a false path. Katowice most likely was another dead end, but she had to find out whether or not Karol had been repatriated to Poland after the war. Since that was the children’s transport camp where all the returnees were processed and housed, perhaps they would know if Karol had been taken there. She took out Felice’s diary and began paging through it and turned to a page with the word kinderheime written on it.
“Pasha, may I interrupt you for a moment?” Slim asked.
“Certainly Slim, what is it?”
“What does the word kinderheime mean in German?”
“Children’s homes,” Pasha answered.
Slim turned the page and then noticed sheets of paper had been torn out.
“This is odd,” Slim said.
“What is it Slim?” Pasha asked curiously, turning away from his cousin.
“Pages were torn out of Felice Scott’s journal,” Slim said. “It’s all the pages that list the children’s homes, which UNRRA searched.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Look for yourself.” Slim handed him the cloth bound journal.
Pasha flipped open the book until he reached the place where the pages had been torn out. “The mystery deepens,” he said.
“It wasn’t like this boy was some prince or even from a well to do family. His mother was a domestic servant. That should not matter, but still,” Slim said, “What made him so special?”
Krzysztof pulled up a long drive. A worker in one of the fields was repairing a fence. He looked at them, put his hand over his throat making a slashing gesture, and then laughed.
“Did you see that?” Slim asked. “Why did he do that?”
“Look to your right,” Krzysztof answered. “What do you see?”
“Train tracks,” Slim said, looking at the rusty tracks. As they drove up closer, she saw the sign over the gate 'Arbeit Macht Fre.' She knew that phrase: ‘Work will set you free.’ She realized where they were: Auschwitz.
“They’re turning this into a museum. I can show you around if you like,” Krzysztof said.
It was the children’s clothes and toys that affected Slim the most. A T-strap red shoe, a broken doll and a tiny blue shirt. They went over to where Brasse shot the photographs of the prisoners. The chair he described was still there. Pasha pulled the lever. The chair moved in three directions. Slim gripped Pasha’s arm and he stopped, dropping the lever.
It was dusk when they drove away from the camp. She turned and noticed something on the sign, Arbeit Macht Fre, over the gate. The ‘b’ in ‘arbeit’ was upside down. Could that had been an act of defiance by the prisoners who made the sign? As the car drove along the railroad tracks Slim blinked, imagining people stumbling out of trains disoriented, while dogs barked and whips cracked. If the Germans had Karol, she had to get him back. After seeing Auschwitz, she decided that no matter where the trail led, she would find that lost boy and if he was alive, bring him home. He would not be living with Nazis. Not if she could help it.
Chapter eight
They pulled up to the train station at Katowice in the early evening.
“Why are you going in there?” Slim asked Krzysztof.
“The station master will be able to recommend a pensione for the night,” he replied.
“Let me come in with you,” Slim said.
She followed him through the swinging wooden doors of the neoclassical station. After seeing so much destruction in Warsaw, it was refreshing to walk through an intact building.
Crowded with people, they had to wait to see the station master as he dealt with a delayed train. Finally, he came over and ushered them into his small office behind the ticket windows.
Krzysztof explained why they were there. The station master nodded, quickly wrote down an address for him and then stood up.
“Please, Krzysztof, could you ask if he knows anything about this boy?” Slim asked as she pulled out Karol’s repatriation identity book from her pocketbook. The station master took it, looked at it and shrugged.
“He doesn’t remember this boy. There were so many.”
“Ask him where the receiving center was for the children in Katowice,” Slim said.
The station master shook his head no, and said the word, ‘Kolze.’
“He says there was confusion when the children got here by train. Parents were here waiting, children from schools were singing and waving flags, but the children weren’t allowed off.”
“Why not?” Slim asked.
The station master frowned and then shrugged.
“He says that a representative from the Katowice Polish Red Cross came aboard, Dr. Adam Schebests. The doctor said the transport had to go to a receiving center in Kolze, which is 50 kilometers away. The children began to panic when they saw they pulling out of the station. It was a cruel sight.”
“No one informed the children on the train that this was going to happen?” Slim asked.
“No. Some of them caught glimpses of their homes when the train began to move away. It was terrible.”
“Can he tell us where the Katowice Polish Red Cross Branch is located?” Slim asked.
The station master wrote down the address and handed it to them. Before Slim could ask him another question, a co-worker ran in with an urgent request. The station master excused himself and ran off.
“It sounds like it was chaos when the kids came back,” Slim sighed, “Do you think we can find Dr. Adam Schebests at the Katowice Red Cross?”
“We can try tomorrow morning. Hopefully, the doctor hasn’t been shot,” Pasha said, loo
king at Krzysztof, who scowled and looked away.
They stayed at a pensione on Dworcowa Street. Slim sat down on her lumpy bed and suddenly remembered that Daniel had been in Auschwitz, on the grounds she had walked that afternoon. Why hadn’t she remembered that when she was there? Was she starting to block Daniel out? Maybe she did not want to think about him at Auschwitz. Her thoughts turned to Tiny. She wished she could call Gran and find out how Tiny was doing. She wondered whether she’d be asleep or not. Hopefully, Josie was working out. She was sure that no harm would come to Tiny with Gran there. Slim closed her eyes and fell asleep. She awoke the next morning to knocking on her door.
“Slim! Darling! Are you alive? Hello!” It was Pasha.
Slim stumbled to the door. She pulled her long auburn hair out of her face and rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept so soundly. She cracked open the door and let Pasha into the room.
“Good Lord, you look like the wreck of the Hesperus,” Pasha said with a grin. He was holding a china pot of tea wrapped in a worn towel and two sets of matching delicate, gold-rimmed porcelain cups and saucers decorated with pink flowers.
“How elegant,” Slim said while she unconsciously snuggled into Pasha’s arms.
“Walbrzych China. Mama had a set for forty in our hunting lodge in Spala. Probably some Bolshie smashed it to pieces.” He kissed her on the cheek and kicked the door closed.
“What about Krzysztof?” Slim asked as she nuzzled against his shoulder.
“He’s taking a walk around Katowice for me.” Pasha said.
“For you?” Slim asked curiously.
“Yes, for me. He’s taking the morning off. Now, where were we?” He pulled the belt on her robe revealing her diaphanous silk nightgown. “Nice,” he said as he nuzzled between her breasts. Slim pulled the robe towards her.
“What is it, Slim?” Pasha asked.
“I don’t feel so slim,” she said, smiling ruefully. “Since Tiny came along, I feel, well…” Tears fell down her cheeks.
Pasha brushed them away. He sat down on the bed, pulled her on his lap, untied her robe and opened the top of her gown, cupping her breast in his hand. “Your body is magnificent.”
“Really?” Slim asked shyly.
“Yes.”
Slim grabbed him by the neck and kissed his lips, tasting the nicotine and coffee on his tongue. Then she pushed him on the bed and had her way with him.
✽✽✽
Later, Pasha and Slim found the Katowice branch of the Polish Red Cross in a brown, modernist apartment building with curved balconies surrounded by red ironwork.
“I can’t figure out the architecture of this city. It’s industrial; it’s urban. It’s old; it’s modern…”
“It’s Poland. Katowice was, and will be again, a major industrial hub.”
“I think I’m just amazed to see buildings standing in Poland. Let’s go in, shall we?”
They were shown into Dr. Schebest’s office by his secretary, a svelte woman in her early twenties. Slim could not help but envy her trim figure.
Dr. Schebest was on the phone, but he waved them in anyway. Tall with thick-lens eyeglasses that made him look like a mad professor, he sat behind an ornately carved desk piled high with files. He hung up abruptly, then smiled and said in lightly accented English, “So, what can I do for you?”
“You speak English?” Slim said, surprised.
“Yes. I studied years ago at the University of Chicago. My secretary informed me that you’re looking for a missing boy. May I see his identity card?”
Slim produced it. “I heard you met the first train coming in with the Polish children,” Slim remarked.
“It was first of many. The U.S. Army had a hard time finding passenger trains; I told them they could not put the children in a freight train.”
“I can’t believe they would send the children back in a cattle car,” Slim said, aghast.
“Don’t be so quick to judge. After the war, we barely had tracks for the trains. They did manage to find these old trains. At least they had windows. It was important for me to have the children see the country they had been torn from so cruelly.” He looked closer at the cardboard book. Then he took a magnifying glass out of his desk drawer and examined it. He peeled back the photo. Then he looked at Slim.
“This has been tampered with. Look, let me show you. Do you see the stamp? The stamp on the picture doesn’t match the one on the book. It almost does.”
“Could it be possible it was stamped twice?” Slim asked.
“It would still have some sort of match in the photo. Also, we attached the photos with staples because the children tended to peel off their pictures. This photo is glued on, and there aren’t any punctures in the picture. Here, look at the last name — it’s been erased and another name typed over.” He turned over the paper and showed them the impressions of two different typed names. “Someone tampered with this card. Most likely this boy was never repatriated.”
“You are certain that this card has been tampered with — forged in some way?”
“I saw thousands and thousands of these cards. This one is not real. Where did you get it?”
“From the International Tracing Service,” Slim replied.
Dr. Schebest handed the small faded cardboard book back to Slim. “This is all very irregular. Do you know of any reason why someone would forge this identity card?”
“I have some ideas, but no real reasons.” Slim put the card back in her purse. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Schebest.”
“I wish I could have helped you more.” He stood up and bowed slightly.
“Do you ever keep in touch with any of the children you brought back?” she asked.
“Some. Some of the children thrived. Others missed their German families. Some came back to no one, others to abject poverty. The lives they once had were gone.”
“Do you ever regret bringing them back?”
“No, we could not afford to lose the children. A nation’s treasure is its children.”
How many times had Slim heard that phrase?
“And the Jews? Did you want the surviving Jews to come back?” Slim asked.
“Of course, but then Kielce happened,” he said. “Three hours away is a town called Kielce. Twenty-nine thousand Jews had once lived there. After the war, two hundred Polish Jews returned. Shortly after they came back, a Polish boy who was late for dinner lied and said he had been kept in a basement by Jews, so he would not get into trouble. Police and soldiers descended on the ravaged community and viciously murdered forty-two and injured forty. Two non-Jews were also killed for trying to help their Jewish neighbors. The government executed nine of the attackers, but news of the pogrom spread to the Polish Jews who had come back. The surviving Jews of Kielce left, never to return. We could not insist the orphaned Polish Jewish children come back. The Jewish Rescue Committee took them, and many immigrated to Palestine.”
“So even after the war, the slaughter continued?” Slim asked.
“Except for Russia, I don’t think any other country was ravaged the way Poland was. Survival has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people. For every Pole who turned on his neighbor, there is another story. Maybe not as many, but there are heroic acts, which will go untold. Some will be remembered, but in each of these acts of cowardice and courage, we understand God’s greatest gift bestowed upon man.”
“And that is?” Slim asked.
“Free will. Our life here on this earth is short. We have a choice to make. Do we live a life of service or do we think only of ourselves? We alone decide our fate.”
Afterward, they headed to Zwierzyniec to trace Karol and Lena’s final days before being separated.
Again, Pasha sat in the front seat arguing with Krzysztof. Slim wondered why they were fighting. Was Pasha trying to convince his cousin to work for M15? Would Krzysztof risk his life to do so? Espionage is a chess game, except it is a constant round of check without the
checkmate. No one won; they just kept each other in peril. Slim looked over her notes for Zwierzyniec. As far as she could tell, it was just another small, charming town. The arguing in the front seat grew heated until Slim could not think anymore.
“Enough!” she shouted. “The two of you are giving me an incredible headache.”
“So sorry, darling,” Pasha said as he gave his cousin the fisheye.
“From my notes, we’re supposed to find a Countess Zamoyska — Krzysztof, do you know her?”
“She’s much younger than I am. We ran in the same circles, so I knew the Countess’s parents. We’re not related, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said.
“Do you have to be related to know them?”
“Most royals are related,” Pasha said, trying to explain his cousin’s statement.
“Of course you are.” Slim said, tired of the intricacies of royal families. “So, how shall we find the Countess once we get there? Do you know if she has a palace?” Slim tried to keep the mockery out of her voice.
“I’m sure the palace has been taken away, but it’s in the center of town. They used to own a forest that it abutted. Is there anyone else you think might be of help once we get there?” Krzysztof asked tersely.
“Maybe Lena’s father. He owned a farm just outside of Zwierzyniec.” Slim responded, pulling back her sarcasm. Krzysztof and Pasha were helping her find out what happened to Karol. She needed to be mindful that they both were probably tired of being on the road, too. Then she remembered this morning. What in God’s name was she doing sleeping with Pasha again? Yes, the two had an affair when she was briefly separated from Daniel the year before, but resuming it now seemed foolish.
They got to Zwierzyniec in the early afternoon. Krzysztof drove straight down Wachniewskie Street and drove through a gate into a grand, white building.
“Let me guess. The former palace is the town hall now,” Slim said dryly. Why was she in such a horrible mood?
Krzysztof got out of the car and held open the door for Slim.
“Let us find out what we can,” he said, then paused, pointing up above the door. “Look, the Zamoyski coat of arms remains, but I have a feeling the Count and Countess have not seen the inside of this building in a long time.”
The Lost Boy Page 12