“Welcome to America,” a crew member said.
The ship would not stop at Ellis Island. Instead, Hannah would have to step off with the Queen Mary’s crew and find another boat to take her to the famed island. Much like Sorcha had been waiting for her in Glasgow, there was an American agent waiting for her when she stepped off the Gray Ghost. The very air smelt like hot dogs, beer, and exhaust. It was the smell of freedom.
The agent wore a short-sleeve white dress shirt with a skinny black tie, and black browline glasses covered his face. He took quick uncommitted puffs of his cigarette. In his left hand, he had a two-by-three-inch photograph, and as the people aboard the ship moved past, he took quick glances from the photograph to the crowd. “Hannah Smith?” the man asked, spotting Hannah. He looked from her to the photograph in his hand.
“Yes,” Hannah said.
The man did not hide that he worked for the government, and that made Hannah less worried than she had been in France or England.
“I am Agent Dunn of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My boss, Director Hoover, has been contacted by Director Magruder of the Office of Strategic Services. Chief Menzies of England has asked that the United States of America offers you asylum. We must first ask you some questions. Follow me please,” Agent Dunn said.
The agent led her to a small dock, roughly a quarter of a mile from where Hannah had stepped off the Queen Mary. The boat waiting for them was smaller than one of the lifeboats aboard the Queen Mary, and it swayed when they stepped on. Another agent operated the engine, and when Hannah and Agent Dunn secured themselves onto the boat, the agent brought the boat humming forward.
“Agent Connors,” Agent Dunn introduced, nodding ever so slightly to the other agent.
Hannah could barely hear him over the chainsaw humming of the boat. Bits of the sea sprayed her face, but she did not mind. The boat skipped along the waves like a smooth stone. The main building on the island came into view. It was a red brick in the style of Renaissance Revival. The American flag was limp from the non-existent wind. The boat ride took mere minutes, and Hannah was thankful for that, as neither of the two men said anything. Agent Connors navigated the boat and killed the engine once they reached the island. Agent Dunn stepped off first.
“Take your bag with you,” he instructed Hannah.
Hannah grabbed the suitcase and followed the agent into the building. The Statue of Liberty looked like a titan from such a close distance, and it stood tall with its back to her to ensure nothing came from Europe to harm her. She made a note to herself that one of the first things she would buy would be a miniature version of the statue—something she could put on the windowsill of wherever she ended up.
The immigrant building was not particularly busy at such a late hour. A family from the Middle East, Muslim by the looks of the woman’s dress, paced around nervously. They had a large family of seven, and Hannah could appreciate the nervousness in their eyes. They were wondering the same thing Hannah was—was there truly a safe place for them? Seated at a table far from Hannah was a family who looked to be from Ireland although Hannah felt shameful for classifying them based on the fact the father had fire-red hair and the family had an affinity for plaid. But when the man spoke, there was no mistaking his prominent accent.
“We’re going to need you to shower and be looked at to make sure you aren’t carrying a disease,” Agent Dunn said.
Shower—the lie the Nazis had told to keep the unsuspected prisoners calm. He led Hannah through the massive entrance hall and down a separate hallway. Hannah paused.
“There’s a towel and soap in there. Should be everything you need,” Agent Dunn said.
She stepped inside, and Agent Dunn waited outside to give her privacy. She removed her shoes and stepped onto the floor. It was ice cold and sent a frozen stab up her legs.
She slowly took her clothes off, and the room seemed more like early January than early June. It was relatively dark and only increased her unsettling feeling. She set her clothes on the bench and stepped into a shower stall. She turned the dial and shivered when the cold water hit her back. She adjusted the dial, and the water turned so hot that steam rose out of the shower. The chill she had gotten from sitting out in the rain only truly subsided when she was sleeping aboard the Queen Mary, but as the hot water ran down her body, it finally left her for good. A small squeeze jug of shampoo and a bar of soap with the paper covering intact were on the soap holder attached to the shower wall. Hannah scrubbed her head and squirted a small bit of shampoo into her hand and lathered her hair.
Thousands had arrived at Auschwitz and had been told a shower was through a door. The train ride took days and people were covered in sweat, human waste, and an invisible yet palpable body odor. A shower was heaven. Yet, what awaited was not hot water, shampoo, and soap. It was death. The fact was not missed by Hannah. Agent Dunn had said she would be taking a shower. Though he would never know how much, the fact Hannah entered the room to find a shower gave her a sense of security she would never forget.
Hannah grabbed a folded white towel on a rack near the sink. The water slid off her goosebump-covered body. She dried herself off and hurried to dress, stepping on her damp towel to keep her feet warm before the cold floor ruthlessly attacked them. The room had a permanent chill, half of which could be attributed to the dull gray coloring and half to poor lighting. Hannah used the bits of the towel that were dry to finish drying her hair the best she could by grabbing bits of it and wringing it out. She pushed open the door. Agent Dunn waited at a respectable distance. He was joined by not Agent Connors but a much older, white-haired man.
“Hannah, this is Dr. Cameron,” Agent Dunn said.
“Hello, Hannah. I’m just going to give you a quick check under the hood. Is that alright?” Dr. Cameron asked. He had a gentle voice, but even if he had asked permission, Agent Dunn wouldn’t.
“Certainly,” Hannah said.
Dr. Cameron checked her hair, face, neck, and hands, something unofficially known as the “six-second physical.” “She’s running like new,” Dr. Cameron said with a smile.
“Thanks, doc,” Agent Dunn said.
“Any time,” Dr. Cameron said, pointing a finger at Agent Dunn and then leaving to check on the Irish and Muslim families still pacing.
“This way, please,” Agent Dunn said.
It was hard to fathom the number of people who had traveled through the building, people in the same situation as Hannah, escaping persecution and tyranny. Hannah had expected to be brought into an office, but Agent Dunn sat at a table. It was here people waited to be accepted or rejected.
“I need to ask you some questions, Ms. Smith,” Agent Dunn said.
“Can I go by my married name? Schreiber?” Hannah asked.
“Passport says Smith. It’s an American name. Your accent will draw enough attention. You don’t want a Kraut name,” Agent Dunn said and nodded to the open chair. Hannah took the seat. He slid her suitcase over, and as she lifted it to put it on the other side of her, she could tell the contents inside had been shifted around.
“Find anything you like?” she asked.
Agent Dunn’s face blushed ever so slightly. “It’s a precaution. You’re from Germany. The United States of America is at war with Germany,” he explained.
Hannah had made a mistake. She did not think they would have allowed her onto the Queen Mary only to reject her when she arrived. Where was she to go? Once again, Hannah was being interrogated as a German spy. Only the warehouse had been substituted for what looked like a giant cafeteria.
“I am a Jew first. The Germans are killing us,” Hannah said.
“What are your goals in living here?” Agent Dunn asked.
“I want to be safe.”
Agent Dunn nodded. He stared unabashedly at her. No doubt he knew everything she had been through the last five years. He tapped his pen on the stack of papers on the table in front of him as if confused while taking an exam.
“W
hat are your thoughts on Hitler?” he asked.
“He is a dictator hell-bent on ruling the world and exterminating an entire group of people,” Hannah said.
“Good. We think he’s an asshole,” Agent Dunn said. He smiled and shuffled the stack of papers neatly together. “You will report to me for the first six months you are here. No, this isn’t standard, but you’re not a standard immigrant either.”
“Report?” Hannah asked.
“Check in once every two weeks and tell me what you are doing—if you’ve found a place to live and a place to work,” Agent Dunn clarified.
“I am to stay in New York?”
“Yes. For the first six months. After that, you can go wherever you want. Can I have your passport please?”
Hannah reached into her pocket and removed the stack of papers and found the thick, navy-colored passport and handed it to Agent Dunn. He searched his pocket and removed a stamp and flipped open the passport. He pressed the stamp down and slid the passport back over.
“Welcome to the United States of America,” he said.
The word “accepted” was in thick red letters, the shade of which perfectly matched the red J that had been stamped on her German one. The red that prevented her from having any future now guaranteed one. Agent Dunn rose from the table, and Hannah followed him. For a small moment, she allowed herself to think of the millions of people who could trace their heritage to the building she stood in. Hannah was lucky the leadership of the United States hadn’t forgotten their ancestors had come from overseas and allowed her in.
Agent Dunn was quiet on the return trip to the city and only handed Hannah a business card that had his name, office address, and telephone number on it. “On the back of that card, you’ll find another address of a temporary place for you to stay. Don’t be afraid to call. Good luck, Ms. Smith,” Agent Dunn said.
“Thank you,” Hannah said.
She had no idea what she would do, but it didn’t matter. She had made it to America, and she was far out of the reach of Hitler and the Nazis.
V-E Day in the Red Square
Somehow, Wilhelm had been in the prisoner-of-war camp for over a year and a half. And, as if it were a direct order from Satan himself, Captain Sokolov ensured every day was a fresh hell for Wilhelm and Torben. Familiar faces perished over the eighteen months, but new Germans took their place.
After the Allied invasion in Normandy, the German army could not stop the Allies from establishing a foothold in France. The Soviets capitalized on their unexpected blow at Stalingrad and delivered a flurry of punches as they pressed from the east. Captain Sokolov could not help but boast with each report that came in stating that the Germans had retreated further west. Wilhelm wanted to call him a coward for being at the camp while thousands of others fought and died, but two things stopped him from doing that. He did not want to be hanged on the gallows at a prisoner-of-war camp somewhere in Russia and, secondly, he felt like a coward himself. He had been captured and held prisoner for a large portion of the war.
Wilhelm and Torben, along with the rest of the camp, stood and waited for Captain Sokolov to give his new orders for the day. After smoking what seemed like the longest cigarette in the history of tobacco, he spoke. “We are to leave this camp. We will begin our march. Those who cannot keep up will be shot.” It was hardly informative—just another method to annoy. Leaving the camp seemed exciting. Wilhelm had seen nothing but it, the factory, and the green fields in between. But where were they going? Was there truly a destination or were they on a death march?
Wilhelm wanted to go back to his bunk and gather what few possessions he had, but the Soviet guards blocked him and the other Germans. They would only be allowed to take what they wore on their backs. Luckily, the thick heat of July and August were gone, and October brought a cool breeze. The Germans were forced to march eight hours a day and end the day’s march by putting up a perimeter fence of barbed wire. They were served minimal food and water and, by the time the additional chores and eating were finished, Wilhelm and the other Germans were allotted less than five hours of sleep before they were forced to wake up and deconstruct the fence they had assembled the night before. Wilhelm had never seen Captain Sokolov happier than when he watched the exhausted and famished Germans struggle to march.
“They are going to march us until we all die,” Torben said.
They had already lost a dozen men, and they had marched for five days with seemingly no destination in sight. Wilhelm had no retort and no energy to exhaust on speaking. He couldn’t remember the last time there was spit in his mouth, and the last time he urinated, he could tell by the color, a dark yellow, he was extremely dehydrated. Captain Sokolov had made a habit of emptying his canteen of water every night onto the ground, knowing every German there would kill for it. It was most fortunate that Sunday was rest day. There were still odd jobs to be completed, but none required a fraction of the amount of energy required for eight hours of marching.
“Schreiber. Kuhn. Dig the latrine,” Captain Sokolov ordered.
Wilhelm and Torben had become so familiar with each other that they could speak “fuck you” with their eyes, and their eyes were quite the talkers. They used two spades, no longer than eighteen inches, that required both to kneel to reach the ground. The hole was barely six inches deep when a stream of urine filled the hole and splattered them. It cascaded down both their arms. They fell over backward, the remaining urine spraying off their boots. Captain Sokolov smiled, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He had his right hand wrapped around his dick and shook off what piss he had left.
“I thought if it was wet, it would make it easier to dig,” Captain Sokolov sneered.
Wilhelm had visions of clobbering Sokolov in the head with the spade, but if he had any hopes of ever seeing Hannah again or anything at all, he needed to refrain. He bit down on the inside of his lip hard enough to taste blood. He didn’t need to see Torben’s eyes to know he had the same reaction. Captain Sokolov stood over them with his dick in his hand, daring one of them to react. Wilhelm could tell by Torben’s face he was contemplating to drive the spade across Sokolov’s pathetic schwanz and cleave it off. When neither did, Sokolov shook himself off, zipped his pants, and left.
“If a bomb could drop right down his fucking throat…” Torben began.
“It would have to go up his ass first,” Wilhelm interrupted.
Both grabbed handfuls of dirt and wiped their arms and then continued to dig deeper. Soldiers were in line before they even finished. It came as no surprise Wilhelm and Torben had latrine duty every day, and each day, Captain Sokolov pulled the same disgusting gag. He was like a child who had fallen in love with a joke and told it over and over, except the joke had never been funny. Each night, Torben and Wilhelm exchanged inhumane ways of killing Sokolov—none of which would have done well to dissuade the Allies they were not Nazis. The longer it went on, the more inhumane the deaths became. Torben was especially creatively cruel. Wilhelm’s favorite included paying for the airfare to fly Sokolov to Australia and have him feasted upon by a pack of dingos and applying a generous amount of honey onto Sokolov’s pants and tying him to a tree and letting a grizzly bear seek out the sweet, golden, thick liquid.
Every German smelt like death and would need at least half a dozen showers before the smell would go away. Women would gag if they got within a block of them and would probably cry and spew vomit if they got within earshot. Wilhelm imagined every flower in the “Rote Blumen” wilting the moment he stepped through the doors. But he and Torben smelt worse than any of the others. It was because the royal prick Sokolov pissed on them every night. Some nights, it was more than a splatter. He urinated on them directly. Their shirts were far from the pure white they once were. They were covered with grease, dirt, blood, sweat and, now, thanks to Captain Asshole, they were stained with his dehydrated, disgusting, dark yellow piss.
That night, they used the small, almost useless, spades when another guard moved
toward them. Wilhelm and Torben braced to get urinated on. Captain Sokolov had finished what seemed like the thousandth time, and Wilhelm couldn’t possibly believe even the Soviets still found it funny. If there was any positive to be had, it was the fact that, apart from a cup of coffee in the morning and night and the occasional swig from his flask, Captain Sokolov hardly drank. If he had seen to drink as much water as was available to him, Wilhelm and Torben might have drowned in urine.
“Here,” the guard said, holding a water canteen by the side of his leg. Wilhelm took the canteen. The contents of it must have been urine. It had been a gag no German had fallen for in weeks, and there were usually signs of suppressed giggling or smirking. But the soldier appeared without any. Wilhelm sniffed it. Nothing triggered any warning signs. He brought it to his mouth and took a sip. The water was lukewarm, but it was enough to satisfy his dry mouth. He passed the canteen to Torben, and he took a drink that between the two of them left the guard with hardly anything left. He took the canteen and walked away. Neither had ever seen the guard before. He would have surely faced reprimand if Captain Sokolov had seen it. He had committed a random act of kindness.
In one moment, Wilhelm had learned one of the most valuable lessons of the war. Wilhelm did not want the Germans as a whole to be reduced to the Nazi ideology and to five prominent figures of Hitler, Goebbels, Eichmann, Heydrich, and Göring, and Wilhelm could not reduce the Soviets to Captain Sokolov or even Stalin himself who had committed multiple purges of his military and whose labor camps led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions. Alexander, Old Uncle Joe, and the unknown guard had shown kindness, whether absolute or fleeting.
Forever Fleeting Page 47