The Katyn Order

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  Hammer grabbed his rifle from the corner near the wood-box. “You two decide what to do. I’ll go help Rabbit keep a lookout.”

  After Hammer left, Natalia propped her elbows on the table. A wave of guilt washed over her. “Goddamn it, I feel terrible for those villagers. Hammer is right; I’m sure they got rid of the bodies and the auto. But we know what the NKVD is like. Sooner or later they’ll show up in that village, and they’ll find out what happened one way or the other.”

  Zeeka pulled up a chair and sat down facing her. “And when those poor folks have a gun pointed at their heads and their daughters are about to be raped, they’re going to lead them right here.”

  Natalia slumped back in the chair. “Christ, what a mess.”

  “Look, what’s done is done. If I’d been in your shoes I’d have shot those sons-of-bitches too. But right now we have to decide where to go. I don’t think we should even wait until morning. We should move out now. The AK cell in Zyrardow has a safe house. We could hide out with them for a day or two until we sort things out.”

  “If we leave right after dark we should get there before dawn,” Natalia agreed. “And they have a wireless. They can send out an alert.”

  Twenty-Nine

  22 MAY

  ALMOST A WEEK had passed since the brief, unproductive meeting with General Kovalenko, and Adam was restless. Colonel Meinerz had given up after three days of waiting for Kovalenko’s office to return his calls and had joined the rest of the team in Dachau, leaving Adam alone. Before he left he had instructed Adam to stay in Berlin and work through General Parks’ staff to gain access to Sachsenhausen, but after several days of bureaucratic inaction Adam was going stir-crazy.

  New American officers had arrived and taken up lodging in the former Nazi’s mansion. They were friendly enough, but spent little time there except for meals. Unlike himself, Adam assumed they had real jobs to do. The meals were another thing—heavy, gravy-laden schnitzels with dumplings and spaetzel, all prepared by Frau Hetzler from the incredible supply of food that kept arriving on U.S. Army trucks. It had been years since Adam had eaten this well, and his stomach was rebelling.

  So this evening he passed up dinner, took an apple from the pantry and went out for a walk. The weather had warmed during this third week of May, and it was still light when he returned a little after eight to find a group of American officers playing bridge on the terrace. He was chatting with them when Frau Hetzler announced that he had a telephone call. Adam followed her into the house and made his way to the foyer near the front door where a silver-plated telephone stood on an ornate, inlaid-wood table. He picked up the receiver. “This is Adam Nowak.”

  There was a pause, then a gruff voice said, “Kovalenko.”

  Adam flinched. He had given up on hearing from the general’s office and certainly from Kovalenko himself. He took a deep breath before responding, “Good evening, General. It’s good to hear from you.”

  “Have you had dinner?”

  Adam consulted his watch. It was eight thirty and he wasn’t hungry. “No, I have not.”

  “Come to the Adlon Hotel.” There was a click, and the line went dead.

  Adam slowly placed the receiver back in the cradle. Dinner with Kovalenko? The Adlon Hotel was in the Russian sector. Should he go alone? Meinerz and the rest of the team were in Dachau. He wondered if Kovalenko knew that.

  After pondering the bizarre situation a few minutes longer, Adam borrowed a Jeep from the group of Americans and drove to the Kommandatura where a Red Army officer stood next to a Russian GAZ-11 with a Soviet flag mounted on the right front fender. It was the same officer from the meeting outside Warsaw eight months earlier, the one with the scarred face and black eye patch. Adam climbed into the GAZ-11, and the officer settled behind the wheel.

  Neither spoke during the short drive to the world-renowned hotel on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Unter den Linden, long a favorite haunt of journalists, diplomats and celebrities like Herbert Hoover, Charlie Chaplin and Marlene Dietrich. In the silence Adam examined the interior of the GAZ, running his hand across the hard leather seats. As an official staff car, it wasn’t nearly as luxurious as the Mercedes-Benz Bravo had stolen from the Germans in Warsaw. It seemed equally powerful though, but it was noisy, and the ride much stiffer, obviously designed for Russian roads.

  Adam peered out the window as the automobile slowed and came to a stop in front of the massive hotel building next to the bombed-out wreckage of the British Embassy. Though still primarily intact, the majestic six-story brick façades of the hotel was blackened from a recent fire, and most of the windows were boarded up. Enormous glass lanterns—remarkably undamaged—stood atop stone pillars on either side of the main entrance, which was also boarded up.

  The Red Army captain opened the auto’s rear door, and Adam stepped out. He followed the Russian through an improvised doorway a few meters from the main entrance, then down an eerily dark corridor and up a flight of stairs, the odor of charred wood hanging heavily in the stale air. They proceeded down another corridor, then entered a brightly lit dining room filled with people.

  Adam gazed in astonishment as white-gloved waiters, wearing black waistcoats and red bow ties, squeezed between closely spaced tables, carrying tureens of soup and platters of sausages, potatoes, roast beef and chicken. The captain tapped his shoulder and pointed to a table at the far end of the noisy, smoky room where General Kovalenko sat at a table set for two.

  The general looked up as Adam approached the table. “Welcome to the Adlon Hotel, Mr. Nowak.” Kovalenko motioned for him to sit, then picked up a carafe of red wine and filled each of their glasses. He took a long drink, draining half of the glass. “The food isn’t very good, but I’ve ordered onion soup and sauerbraten. It may take them a while.” He polished off the wine and refilled his glass.

  “That will be fine,” Adam said, as he took a sip of the sweet wine. “I’m sorry Colonel Meinerz is not here to join us,” he added. “He was called to Dachau.”

  The general lit another cigarette and regarded him through the smoke. “I know. Dachau doesn’t interest you?”

  “It does, but my instructions are to remain here and arrange the visit to Sachsenhausen.”

  They sipped the wine. Adam lit a cigarette of his own and glanced around the teeming dining room, marveling at the rich mahogany walls, patterned carpet and plumed pillars that rose to the ceiling. Each table was set with white linens, sterling silver flatware and a single rose in a cut-glass vase. The elegant room was populated mostly by Red Army officers accompanied by young German women with painted faces, incongruously dressed in evening gowns in the midst of this shattered city. “I’m surprised the hotel is still able to maintain such a dining room,” he said.

  “Marshal Zhukov ordered us to leave it standing. He thought the officers might need a place to dine. Fortunately this section of the hotel was spared the worst of the fire.” Kovalenko snapped his fingers, and a waiter appeared with another carafe of wine. “I’m told the SS was dining in this very room, celebrating their Fuhrer’s birthday as we were advancing on the city. Do you like the wine? The cellar was well-stocked when we arrived. Apparently the SS left in a hurry.”

  “It’s nice,” Adam replied. “What is it?”

  “The Germans call it Trollinger. Too sweet for me,” the general said. “But we can’t have everything.”

  The trivial conversation continued until the food arrived. Adam tried the soup first. It was thick with onion but lacked cheese or seasoning. The sauerbraten was tough and the potatoes overcooked, but the heavy brown gravy was all he could taste anyway. He would be glad to get away from German cooking. Across the table, Kovalenko appeared to feel the same.

  When they finished, the waiter cleared the table and reappeared a moment later with two snifters of cognac. Kovalenko lifted the glass to his nose and inhaled, gently swirling the amber liquor. “Rémy Martin, one of the few things the French ever got right,” he said. “The SS were kin
d enough to leave several hundred cases in the cellar as well.” He fixed Adam with a sharp look over the rim of the glass. “Did you serve in the Polish Army, Mr. Nowak?”

  The curious question caught him off guard. Was it possible that Kovalenko did not remember him from their meeting that night across the river from Warsaw? Adam doubted that and took a sip of cognac before answering. “I’m an American, General Kovalenko. I served in the American Army from 1933 to 1936.”

  “But you were living in Krakow when the war broke out.”

  As Whitehall had predicted, the Russians had investigated his background. “I was living there as a civilian, following my discharge from the army. I studied law at Jagiellonian University. I had family in Krakow. But you probably know that.”

  “The Germans deported you in ’39?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you returned to America?”

  “No, I went to London,” Adam replied. The well-rehearsed story rolled out more easily than he’d expected. “I worked as liaison between the British and the Polish Government-in-Exile. I was born in Poland, you see, so my fluency in the language is—”

  Kovalenko abruptly lit a cigarette and blew out a mighty cloud of smoke. He leaned forward, glancing around the dining room. “A word of caution, Mr. Nowak. Major Tarnov has taken an interest in you.”

  Adam’s spine tingled. “And why would Major Tarnov be interested in me?”

  Kovalenko waved a hand dismissively. “Ah, he’s NKVD. They’re all paranoid. You weren’t associated with those AK anarchists in Poland, were you?”

  Adam maintained eye contact with Kovalenko. This is a very clever—and very dangerous—adversary. “No, General, I wasn’t.”

  The general’s expression was inscrutable as he flicked cigarette ashes into the sterling silver ashtray. Then his eyes moved toward the front of the dining room. “Ah, our drivers have arrived.”

  Two Red Army officers stood at the entrance. General Kovalenko led the way across the room. He motioned toward the officer with the eye patch who had driven Adam to the hotel. “Captain Andreyev will drop you back at the Kommandatura. He will meet you there again at 0700 tomorrow and drive you to Sachsenhausen. Perhaps you will find what you’re looking for.”

  Thirty

  23 MAY

  THE ROADWAY leading into the Sachsenhausen concentration camp passed through the center of a stately three-story brick building. Captain Andreyev stopped the GAZ-11 in front of the gate and exchanged a few words with the Red Army soldiers standing guard. Adam grimaced as he read the sign in the center of the gate: Arbeit Macht Frei. Yes, “work will set you free” . . . until they send you to the gas chamber.

  The gate opened, and Captain Andreyev gunned the engine. They drove through and stopped on the other side in a vast semicircular courtyard surrounded by concrete and stucco barracks that radiated outward like the spokes of a giant wheel. Standing prominently at the far end of the bloodstained cobblestone yard was a wooden gallows that Adam guessed was large enough for a half-dozen people.

  A moment later the car door opened, and a burly Red Army officer with a thick, black mustache climbed into the backseat next to Adam. Captain Andreyev turned around and said in English, “This is Major Vygotsky. He is in charge of the camp detail. I will interpret for him.”

  Major Vygotsky chattered in Russian, and Andreyev repeated in English, as they drove through the immense facility. Adam forced himself to concentrate on what was being said and tried to keep his mind off his precarious situation—an American, formerly a saboteur and an assassin for the Polish AK, touring a German concentration camp with two Russian officers. He felt relieved every time Vygotsky wanted them to have a closer look at something and he could leave the confinement of the auto.

  The Russian seemed eager to display his knowledge of the gruesome camp. As they stood inside one of the empty barracks, lined on each side with three-tier wooden racks still reeking of mold and human excrement, Vygotsky stated matter-of-factly, “There were more than sixty-five thousand prisoners in Sachsenhausen as late as January 1945, including ten thousand women. About half of them were marched out by the SS before we liberated the camp. Most of those left behind were too weak to march, and the SS finished them off in the ‘pit’ with machine guns.”

  It sickened Adam to think that his uncle had been here. “I heard you found several thousand survivors,” he managed to say.

  Andreyev translated, and Vygotsky nodded. “Most of them died within a week. All the rest were taken to hospitals in nearby towns.” While Andreyev’s facial expression remained inscrutable, his shoulders twitched occasionally. Adam noticed a tightness in his voice as he related Vygotsky’s remarks, as though he were disturbed by what he was hearing.

  “Do you have their names?” Adam asked.

  Upon hearing the translation, Vygotsky roared with laughter. “Names? Yes, we have names—tens of thousands of names, addresses, identification numbers—books full of names. You will see.” They got back in the auto and sped off.

  They drove on through the deserted facility with Vygotsky explaining the details and Andreyev continuing to translate. They passed factory buildings where slave laborers had worked to death producing bricks, army boots and munitions, past the medical facility where SS doctors conducted medical experiments on prisoners too weak for work, finally arriving at the “pit.” Andreyev pulled over and stopped the car next to a concrete trench as long as a football field and about half as wide. The flat bottom and slanted sides were covered in blackish-red stains. “The survivors told us the SS only used this for quick and dirty executions,” Vygotsky said, “like right at the end. Most of their work was done at Station Z.”

  Adam looked at the grisly killing field. Quick and dirty, like right at the end. Had his uncle been among them?

  After a moment they set off again, and Andreyev drove to a large, windowless, concrete-block structure. He circled around to the back and stopped. A neat row of pressure cylinders were chained to the side of the building, each one bearing a prominent red-and-white placard emblazoned with a skull and crossbones.

  “This is Station Z,” Vygotsky said. “The SS gassed more than a hundred thousand prisoners here.” He jerked his thumb toward the cylinders. “Zyklon-B, it’s a pesticide, the same thing they used at Auschwitz—very effective. Care to have a closer look?”

  Adam stared at the austere concrete building and the lethal gas cylinders, grateful now for every SS officer he’d assassinated. He turned to Andreyev.

  The Russian looked him in the eye. With a barely discernible motion, Andreyev shook his head.

  “I’ve seen enough,” Adam said.

  The final stop was a wood-frame structure that looked like a small house, at the far end of the triangular-shaped camp. They got out of the car and walked up to the door. Vygotsky took out a ring of keys, fumbled around for the right one and unlocked the door. He clicked on the lights and motioned for them to enter.

  Adam stood in the doorway and looked around in amazement. Covering all four walls were floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hundreds of identical leather-bound volumes. A wooden table and four chairs filled the center of the room. Major Vygotsky tossed his hat on the table. He lit a cigarette and turned to Adam. “The records are very well organized, typical SS devotion to paperwork and detail. Now, what can we do for you?”

  Adam produced the list of names he’d received from Whitehall. The last one was his uncle’s: Ludwik Banach.

  It was a tedious process. Vygotsky pulled down volume after volume, while Adam flipped through the pages, read the various entries and wrote down the information. He had to admit, Whitehall’s staff had done their homework to make the exercise seem legitimate while obscuring the real reason for the search. Some of the persons on the list had been incarcerated at Sachsenhausen and some had not, as one might expect after the uncertainty of six years of war.

  After what seemed an eternity, Adam found what he was looking for. On page 164 of volume 87, an
entry read:

  Reference Number: 23864

  Date of Admission: 10 November 1939

  Surname: Banach

  First name: Ludwik

  Domicile: Krakow, Poland

  Religion: Roman Catholic

  Occupation: University Professor

  V293

  Adam stared at his uncle’s name, finding it extremely difficult to maintain the detached demeanor of a diplomat investigating a list of names. The cold realization that his uncle had actually been imprisoned in this hellhole crushed him like a vise. He took his time writing down the information, being careful to prevent his hand from shaking. When he finished, he took a deep breath before he trusted himself to look at the Russian officers, who were chatting at the other end of the table. He motioned to Vygotsky and pointed to the last item of the entry. “V293 . . . what does that mean?” he whispered.

  Vygotsky stepped around the table and leaned over the volume. Then, suddenly seeming agitated and talking rapidly, he scanned the shelves on the back wall of the room. He pulled down volume 293 and flipped through the pages.

  “He says that this volume contains information on prisoners that were subject to special circumstances,” Andreyev said to Adam. “That’s very unusual. He says he’s only seen it one other time.”

  Vygotsky continued to rifle through the pages of volume 293, then stopped and ran his finger down a page halfway through the thick leather-bound book. He bent down and studied one of the entries, then turned to Adam, his expression darkening into a scowl.

  Adam read the neatly printed words.

  Reference Number: 23864

  Surname: Banach

  First Name: Ludwik

  Date of Release: 10 July 1940

  Destination: Krakow, Poland

  Special Orders: Transferred to the personal custody of Hans Frank, Governor, Government General – Poland.