“One more time you tell me ‘I don’t know’ and I’ll throw you in jail for covering the major war criminal. Where is he?!” he yelled, smashing one of his fists on the table. I jumped in my chair and instinctively pulled backwards, away from him.
“He didn’t tell me… He might be anywhere now, maybe South America even—”
“He didn’t leave Austria, that we know for sure. Where is he?”
“Maybe…” I went quiet for a moment, feverishly thinking of what to say. I had a feeling that Sergeant McMahon’s threat to throw me in jail was not an empty one, but at the same time I didn’t want to give away Ernst’s possible hideout. “Maybe Vienna?”
“I don’t think so. Try again.”
He’s like our Gestapo, a thought crossed my mind. The OSS agent’s heavy breathing and pursed lips didn’t help me to concentrate either. Instead it only made me want to pull my head in between my shoulders.
“Maybe he went to stay with his family?” I suggested indecisively, expecting another violent outburst from the sergeant.
“Where’s his family?”
“Linz…”
I didn’t want to inform him about the recently completed Austrian Führer’s bunker, which was never used but to which Ernst was heading right after he left my house that day. His last task was to keep communication alive between the two countries, to command the southern armies after Himmler appointed him the Commander-in-Chief and in case the allied forces approached the Alps, to destroy the collection gathered there for the future Führer’s museum. All that information I kept to myself, leaving Ernst one last chance to escape the manhunt led by the OSS. I knew that nothing good was awaiting him in case they captured him.
“Linz,” the American repeated with a pensive look on his face. “That’s around where he was last seen, so maybe you’re right.”
“You’re wasting your time hunting him down. He will never surrender to you alive,” I said out of some childish malice.
He was threatening me and I just had to say something to get him back. Sergeant McMahon looked at me with interest, for the first time.
“Never surrender, you say?”
“He’d rather kill himself than fall into the enemy’s hands. I know him very well,” I added proudly.
“I had not thought of that,” the American confessed, and his thin lips jerked in some sort of a smile I did not like at all. “So how do I persuade him to surrender alive?”
“You can’t. He won’t do it.” I gave him a one shoulder shrug.
“Maybe he won’t, or maybe he will,” he muttered, walking behind my back and grabbing my braid.
“What are you doing?!” I screamed, terrified, realizing that he was cutting it off with his army knife at the very base.
“Obtaining the proof of my intentions.” He inspected my long braid in his hand with obvious satisfaction as I, still in disbelief and horror, touched my unevenly cut hair with my shaking hand. “I’ll bring this beautiful thing with me for the talks with your beloved General Kaltenbrunner, and will politely imply that if he doesn’t surrender alive, I’ll strangle both you and his little unborn bastard – that’s his bastard as I understand – with this very braid.”
I was looking at him in shock for quite some time, still not able to believe what he just did to me. That’s the gratitude I got for helping his government for several years and putting my own life in danger every single day.
“I’ve never seen a monster like you,” I whispered, swallowing bitter tears with all the hatred I had in me. “And I’ve dealt with the Nazis my whole life.”
“I’m just doing my job, Mrs. Friedmann.”
“Yes, that’s what they were saying too.”
“I’m not going to have political polemics with you now if you don’t mind, I have a certain war criminal to catch. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way. Thank you for your… help.” He smirked, wrapping my chopped off braid on his fist. “The agents will take you to your room now.”
I closed my eyes thinking how mistaken I was. He was worse than our Gestapo.
Chapter 11
The OSS people had accommodated us in one of the few still intact townhouses left in Berlin, together with several other agents. Their leader, agent Foster, knocked on the door of my room right after they’d brought me there after the interrogation, and wanted to introduce himself, but I was by no means in a talking mood.
“Mrs. Friedmann? My name is agent Foster and I—”
“Get out of here and leave me alone!” After everything I’d been through in the past several weeks, all my poised and controlled state of mind fell apart just like my country did. “I have nothing else to tell you! Leave me in peace! I can’t stand seeing any of you anymore! I want my husband! Where is he? What did you do to him?”
Agent Foster probably had experience in dealing with such kinds of reaction before, because he just fixed his thin framed glasses on the bridge of his nose and calmly answered, “Your husband is at our hospital, our doctors are checking his wound and will keep him there for observation for some time. You have nothing to worry about, I assure you. Worrying isn’t good for you in your state.”
The tall agent smiled kindly at my belly, but his polite tone triggered me more than anything.
“Not good?! Worrying is not good?! I guess that’s the reason why I’m treated like a criminal here, that’s the reason why your sergeant was threatening me and that’s why he chopped my hair off, because he didn’t want to make me worried!!! Is that how you treat the people who were doing everything possible and impossible to help you?! If I only knew that, I would have never dealt with you, you heartless bastards, I hate all of you!!!”
I screamed the last few words, covered my face with my hands and burst into tears, feeling terribly offended, betrayed and helpless. Agent Foster sat on the bed next to me and offered me his handkerchief.
“I understand perfectly your sentiments, Mrs. Friedmann,” he started in the same calm voice, but with genuine concern in it. “And I’m very sorry that sergeant McMahon happened to be your first impression of the OSS. I came here to apologize for his absolutely unacceptable behavior and to assure you that you will never be treated like that again. We highly appreciate your help you’ve been providing us with this whole time, and will do our best to make your stay here as comfortable as possible till we can transport you to the United States. Now is there anything I can do for you? Don’t be shy to ask me anything you need.”
“Just leave me alone, please.”
“Of course, Mrs. Friedmann. I’ll be downstairs if you need something.”
Smiling Heinrich walked in, a little unsteady but by himself, a day later. I rushed to hug him and wept on his healthy shoulder for what seemed like several hours. He already knew about McMahon and his methods from agent Foster as he told me later, and repeated several times that everything was over with, that we were in good hands and that all the horrors were behind now, that it was all in the past and that nothing bad would ever happen to us again. I cried even harder because I didn’t believe him, no matter how hard I tried.
“And stop crying over your hair.” Heinrich gently tucked short strands behind my ear. “It’s just hair, it’ll grow back in no time.”
Didn’t they all understand that it wasn’t the loss of it that I was crying about, I was crying because that hair would help them catch my Erni. Why didn’t he go to South America with Otto, why? Why didn’t he want to save himself, I kept thinking, wiping the never-ending tears from my face.
The lovely May weather outside opposed my mood as if making fun of me, with its chirping joyful birds, warmest sunshine and blossoming trees, the ones that somehow survived all the fire, bombings and shootings. Here it was, the ultimate victory of life over death, disgusting to me in its proud state, because somewhere not too far away someone was hunting down my Erni to kill him. The Americans were listening to their jazz and laughing downstairs, while I lay in my bed with no strength to move left.
“Mrs. Friedmann? How are you feeling today?”
“I’m fine,” I answered mechanically; in my recent numb state I didn’t feel anything at all.
“I need you to sign something for me, it won’t take even five minutes.”
“Sure.”
I changed my laying position into the seated one as agent Foster sat next to me, holding some papers in his hands.
“Here’s your new American passport, Mrs. Friedmann… or shall I call you Mrs. Rosenberg from now on?”
The smile playing on his lips when he handed me my new passport was the one of the father watching his child opening a Christmas present.
“Am I officially Jewish now?” I managed a little chuckle after inspecting the document closely.
“Yes. Both you and your husband. We’re filing you as former political refugees who lived in hiding all this time. Your new name is Emma Rosenberg, your age is the same, twenty five—”
“I’m twenty four, my birthday is in December,” I corrected him.
“Right, I just meant to say that all the vital data we left the same, so you wouldn’t have to memorize too many details. Please, sign here, right under your picture… Good. And here, this is the emigration form… Good. And also sign this agreement, please, I can leave it for you to read, but basically it says that you won’t share the details of your former ties with the OSS with anybody. Your husband will still be working with us when we transfer you to New York, but both of you must agree that you’ll keep all this in secret.”
“Of course, it only makes sense.” I signed the agreement where he told me to.
“Fine. Well, we’re all set.” Agent Foster smiled again, but didn’t get up and cleared his throat instead, intentionally slowly putting the papers back into the file.
“Is there anything else?” I frowned, observing his nervous state, which was unusual for him.
“Yes, umm…” He wetted his lips, looking away and trying to escape my look. “I thought you might want to know… Mr. Kaltenbrunner was arrested yesterday.”
I thought that I was mentally prepared to hear that phrase any time soon, but as it turned out I wasn’t. I suddenly couldn’t bring myself to take another breath.
“Are you okay?” Agent Foster sympathetically touched my shoulder.
I shook my head no, not able to move a single finger. Everything was in the past… nothing bad wouldn’t happen anymore… I shouldn’t worry about a thing… They were all lying to me. They were going to kill my Erni and were trying to distract me with the promise of a happy new life like they would distract a crying child with a candy.
“Let me bring you a glass of water.”
I looked at the glass he was holding in front of me for some time and then shifted my eyes to meet his. “What are you going to do to him?”
“Nothing. He’ll face the trial together with the rest of major war criminals.”
“That man is with him!” I clasped my mouth in horror, remembering sergeant McMahon’s vicious grin and the deadly determination he was going after Ernst with. Agent Foster later explained to me that McMahon’s obsessive behavior was nothing less than a personal vendetta: his brother was executed in one of the camps at the end of 1944. ‘The Bullet Decree’ prescribing to execute all the allied parachutists was Himmler’s initiative, which Ernst strongly opposed, but American sergeant couldn’t possibly know that and blamed his brother’s death on the Chief of the RSHA and not Reichsführer Himmler.
“Don’t worry about McMahon, he won’t do anything to him.”
“How do you know?!”
“We’re not your Gestapo, we don’t torture people.”
But I didn’t believe him. Too many times I had heard too many lies and I had lost my faith in everybody around.
“You’re lying! You’ll kill him, I know you will.”
I curled on my bed, hiding my face in the pillow, trying to muffle my sobbing. I couldn’t stop my hysterics despite the joined efforts of agent Foster and Heinrich, who came back from the hospital after having his bandages changed. My emotional pain was so strong that I didn’t even notice my physical state. Later that day I went into labor.
_______________
“Congratulations, you have a beautiful, healthy boy.” The smiling military doctor, wearing a uniform under his white gown, handed me my precious little bundle wrapped in a blanket.
Looking into the big serious eyes of my newborn son I found myself smiling for the first time in God knows how long. It was taking my breath away seeing this miniature copy of the man I loved so much, and I couldn’t be happier to come to the conclusion that this little one didn’t have anything from me at all.
“Do you have a name for him yet?” the doctor inquired.
“Yes.” I held the baby’s tiny hand between my fingers. “Ernie. Ernst Ferdinand.”
“He’ll become a President one day with such a name,” the doctor chuckled kind-heartedly. “I’ll ask your supervisor to write a birth certificate for him.”
“Thank you,” I answered dreamily, not able to keep my eyes away from my newborn.
“Shall I invite your husband in?”
“Yes, of course.”
Heinrich, who was staying by the door the whole time and kept jumping to his feet and asking how I was doing every time the doctor would come out for a quick smoke leaving me with his assistant, stood indecisively in the entrance until the doctor motioned him to walk up to me.
“Don’t be afraid, it’s just a baby, he won’t bite you,” the doctor encouraged him.
Heinrich smiled embarrassingly and carefully sat on the side of my bed. He leaned closer to me and gently pulled the side of the blanket away from the baby’s face.
“Jesus Christ!” he burst out laughing when the doctor and his assistant stepped out to have another cigarette. “He looks just like his father! It’s unbelievable!”
“Yes, he does.” I lovingly brushed baby’s dark hair with one finger.
“Can I hold him?” Heinrich asked, much to my surprise.
“How’s your shoulder?”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry, I won’t drop him!”
I gave Heinrich my best ‘you better not’ look and slowly passed the baby to him. He took the little bundle very carefully and smiled wider.
“He looks so serious… I have a feeling like I’m at the meeting with the Chief of the RSHA again, and he doesn’t like me.”
I laughed, for the first time in several weeks. “He’s a baby, he doesn’t know how to smile yet!”
“I still have a feeling that he doesn’t like me,” Heinrich insisted, probably because he saw me laughing and wanted to cheer me up even more. “See, he gave me a dirty look, just like his father used to do!”
“Babies can’t give dirty looks, silly! Ouch!” I instinctively touched my belly, which hurt from all the laughter.
“This one can! Look at him! He does not like me, I’m telling you!”
Agent Foster walked in, followed by the doctor and immediately approached Heinrich still holding baby Ernie in his arms.
“Congratulations!” He smiled genuinely, looking into the blanket. “A son, I heard?”
“Yes,” Heinrich answered proudly instead of me.
“That’s great! I remember when I held my firstborn for the first time I was so confused and didn’t know what to do. I was absolutely lost for several weeks maybe, getting used to the thought that it was three of us from now on. Can’t believe that he’s already twelve.”
“Twelve?” Heinrich and I asked in unison.
“Yes. I have four of them. All boys.” The American couldn’t hide the pride in his voice, and I started feeling ashamed for everything I’d put him through recently. He wasn’t a bad man at all, but I refused to admit it. “I will issue your little one an American birth certificate since he was born in the American occupation zone
. This way he’ll be considered an American citizen right away. And when you feel well enough to fly, we’ll write him into your passport and the three of you will be good to go. Sounds fine?”
“Yes. Thank you,” Heinrich and I gratefully replied.
That birth certificate caused us some trouble, since I wanted to put Ernst’s last name together with mine in it. Agent Foster was very hesitant to do it.
“Mrs. Rosenberg.” He adopted a habit of calling me by my new fake name right after he gave me my new passport. “I understand perfectly your desire to give your son his father’s last name together with yours, but don’t you think that it will cause him problems in the future?”
“Why would it cause him any problems?” I frowned.
“Well, after everything your… hmm, your son’s father is being accused of and after he faces the International Military Tribunal, his name won’t be something anybody would want to associate themselves with.”
“Ernst didn’t do anything bad, I’ve told you already. He was acting on Himmler’s behalf, and could only oppose him openly in the end of last year. Whatever he’s being accused of is Himmler’s responsibility and Himmler’s fault, only his, not Ernst’s.”
“It’s next to impossible to prove, especially taking into consideration Mr. Kaltenbrunner’s high rank and position. Nobody will believe that he didn’t have any influence over the RSHA and the Gestapo.”
“Müller was in charge of the Gestapo.”
“And unfortunately both Himmler and Müller are still missing.”
“Bormann? What about Bormann? He can confirm Ernst’s innocence as well. They even partnered to set contacts with the Red Cross in April…”
“We can’t find Bormann either.” The American lowered his eyes.
“Just put Ernst’s name in that birth certificate, will you? I don’t care if the whole world is accusing him of all deadly sins, I know that he’s innocent. My son deserves to know who his father is and I’m sure when he grows up, he’ll be very proud of him.”
Agent Foster removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Tell you what, Mrs. Rosenberg, I’ll put Mr. Kaltenbrunner’s last name together with yours in the birth certificate, but I won’t write it into your passport. When your son grows up, he’ll be able to decide whether to keep it or not. Sounds fair?”
The Girl from Berlin: War Criminal's Widow Page 16