The Promised Land (All My Love, Detrick Series) (All My Love Detrick Book 3)

by Roberta Kagan

  Earlier that night, Manfred and Dolf had shared half of a bottle of schnapps that ODESSA had given him. However, as Manfred was instructed to do, he pretended to sip, while giving most of the drink to Dolf. Manfred had been told that the liquor contained a drug that would put Dolf into a deep sleep, making the job much easier.

  Quietly, Manfred rose from his cot and walked over to where Dolf slept, the capsule feeling sticky in his hand. Manfred felt his heart racing. What if somehow Dolf awakened before it was over? Would he struggle? Manfred was not sure that he was strong enough to overtake Dolf in a fight.

  Dolf snored, his mouth slightly agape. Gently, Manfred lifted Dolf’s lip and carefully arranged the pill between his back teeth. Then, placing his hand under Dolf’s chin, Manfred pushed hard enough to crush the pill in Dolf’s mouth. Dolf’s eyes flew open for a moment with lack of understanding, and shock. He stared at Manfred, as if to ask why? Then Dolf’s body twitched and a strong odor of feces permeated the air. Manfred looked away. He couldn’t bear to be so close to Dolf’s face while he was dying.

  It was only a few seconds that Dolf twitched and writhed, and then he was still. Manfred shuddered, and then quickly exchanged shirts with Dolf. Now Manfred wore Dolf’s shirt with Dolf’s number and Dolf wore Manfred’s. From this moment on Manfred would be known as Dolf Sprecht. And since Dolf Sprecht would have been done with his sentence in three months, Manfred would be a free man in less than half a year.

  When he got out, ODESSA would arrange for him to be transported to South America to meet a group of escaped Nazis who had found refuge there. And from there . . . well, who could say what the future might bring? For the first time since his notification of Christa’s death, Manfred felt a tingle of excitement. Perhaps something wonderful might be on the horizon.

  Chapter 10

  Katja had made a friend, a little girl a few years older than her, who had come aboard with only her older sister. Her name was Rachel. Zofia overheard them as they sat on the ground, twisting a piece of string with their hands. Rachel was as dark as Katja was blond. Her long black curls hung down her back, her olive skin was browned to a creamy tan, and she had laughing almond-shaped black eyes.

  Zofia knew Katja was shy. It had taken a long time for Katja to make friends with Elizabeth. However, this little girl was so endearing that Katja took to her almost immediately.

  Zofia breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the two of them playing. She had felt terribly guilty pulling Katja away from the life to which she’d adjusted. After all, Katja had been tossed about far too much already.

  Isaac sat beside Zofia on the deck of the ship. A breeze came off the Mediterranean, floating through her long dark hair.

  Zofia could not yet believe that Isaac had returned. She had dreamed of this moment for years. She would daydream about it when she was awake, but when she dreamed at night, her experience was so real that she resented waking. She’d resigned herself to the knowledge that Isaac was gone forever.

  But he wasn’t gone; he was alive, he was here, right here beside her. She thanked God again for the thousandth time for the blessing of returning her beloved. Zofia smiled at Isaac then gently caressed his thumb with her own.

  “I thought of you every day . . .” He moved very close to her ear and whispered so that only she could hear him. A shiver of desire tingled through her. She looked into his eyes and felt that she could easily lose herself there forever. He reached up and touched her face. Then she heard Rachel laugh and remembered that they were in public view, and the children were playing only a few feet away. Zofia composed herself.

  “What happened after you left Shlomie and me in the forest when you went hunting for food?”

  “I was captured at gunpoint by four SS officers. They were having a picnic with their girlfriends, but still had time to stop and force me into an automobile. Then I was taken to their headquarters and from there to Treblinka ,” he said. Then, for the first time, she noticed the dark blue tattoo of numbers that looked as if it had bled into his arm. She turned to him and gently ran her fingers over the tattoo.

  “They did this?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Did it hurt?” she whispered, feeling foolish, not knowing what else to say.

  He shook his head. “It hurt me much more that I couldn’t see you, that I couldn’t be with you, that I couldn’t take care of you. I didn’t know how you would manage. I didn’t know if you would be able to manage. Every day, I prayed that you would find food, that you would not be captured . . .”

  “Isaac . . .”

  “I want to hold you in my arms. Zofia, for so long that dream was all I had to keep me alive.”

  Zofia heard the two little girls giggling, and she saw Rachel’s sister pull a handmade doll out of her bag.

  “When the army came and liberated us, everyone around me was so frail, but I was still pretty strong. Perhaps because I was captured so close to the end of the war, the Nazis hadn’t had the chance to starve me to the point of weakness.”

  She nodded.

  “Then I traveled from DP camp to DP camp looking for you. In one of those camps, I even slept in the barracks where the Nazi officers had slept. I still smelled the smell of their cologne and it made me want to vomit. After that, I left the DP camps and I went back to the forest, the forest where we had met and lived. I roamed like a nomad. I was still searching everywhere for you, praying every day. I wondered if you were wandering somewhere in the forest, unaware that the war had ended.”

  “I thought of you every day, as well. After the war, Shlomie and I were rescued, but we had no place to go and no money, so we were staying in an American DP camp. I began helping the Red Cross reunite people with their lost loved ones. The lists of people who were searching for their families came in every day. I was hoping that somehow, some way, I would find you.” She wiped her eyes before the tears could spill onto her cheeks.

  “Shhh, my darling, my only love . . . shhh. It will be all right now. As soon as we get settled in Palestine, we’ll get married and then we can leave all of this behind us and begin our lives.”

  She nodded. “Yes, Palestine.”

  He swallowed hard. “Yes, the Promised Land. Finally Jews will have a homeland, a place of our own.”

  “I’ve heard it’s little more than a strip of desert. They say that nothing will grow there.” She smiled at him.

  “Could very well be, but it will be our strip of desert. We will find a way to make it fertile. No matter what, no Jew will ever be without a place to go. When the Nazis took over, we had no one to turn to and the entire world turned their back on us. Now we will have Palestine.”

  She smiled at him. “Yes,” she agreed.

  “Mama . . .” Katja said.

  Zofia turned as Katja walked over to her. “This is Rachel, my new friend, and her sister Shana.”

  “Hello Rachel and Shana. I am Katja’s mother, Zofia, and this is my soon-to-be husband, Isaac.”

  Chapter 11

  Had it really been so easy? Manfred marveled as they took the dead body of Dolf Sprecht away. No one, not one guard questioned Manfred’s identity. They accepted him as Dolf Sprecht, and the dead body as Manfred Blau. Amazing, Manfred thought. Could they really be so stupid, so dim?

  “This is what the Nazis do. They somehow get hold of a cyanide capsule and bam. They take themselves out,” an American guard said as he placed the body onto the stretcher. “We should have watched Blau more closely.”

  “Yeah, I know they kill themselves. They’d rather die than face the loss of their precious Reich. All the big shots bit cyanide. Himmler, Goebbels, all of ’em,” a tall American with broad shoulders and a slender waist added, as he tossed his cigarette to the ground and extinguished it with the toe of his boot. Then he took the other side of the stretcher and the two guards began to carry the corpse away.

  “Well, goodbye Manfred Blau. Another dead Nazi, huh? Let’s throw him in the morgue and get some lunch,”
the first American said.

  It had worked. Manfred was now Dolf Sprecht. He would be released from prison in less than three months. Leaning back against the wall as he sat on his cot, he wished that his wife, Christa, would be waiting for him. But he knew that he had to accept that that part of his life had ended forever. So many mistakes he’d made, so much had gone sour between him and Christa. The sad part was that he would never have a chance to apologize. He thought of Christa’s cornflower eyes and her wheat-colored hair. Then he thought of that little girl, Katja, who Christa had loved so much. Christa, my Christa. Everything I did was for you . . .

  “Sprecht, get up . . . time to go outside and do your work in the garden.” At first Manfred had ignored the guard. He didn’t realize that the guard was speaking to him. Then it dawned on him; he was Sprecht. It would take some getting used to, this new name, this new identity.

  Manfred stood and stretched. He leaned back and the bones in his back cracked slightly. Then he followed the guard outside. Manfred was led to Dolf’s plot. He hoped they would not ask what he had planted, because he had no idea what kind of seeds Dolf had placed into the earth. It would be a surprise for all of them, most of all Manfred. From across the yard, Manfred saw Rudolf Hess. Hess nodded and smiled. All was going as planned.

  Chapter 12

  Shana was wonderful with the two little girls. Often she sat playing with Katja and Rachel on the floor of the deck. It amazed Zofia how strong their imaginations were. They played with toys made out of the smallest, most insignificant objects. Zofia worried about the name Katja, but she decided that it was too late to change Katja’s name, even after all her intentions to change it. The child had already made friends and been introduced to others on the boat as Katja before Zofia had had the chance to intervene. So Katja would enter Palestine with the name given to her at her Nazi christening, which was held at the home for the Lebensborn.

  Once Zofia felt confident that she could trust Shana to watch the girls, Zofia and Isaac slipped off to find a place to be alone on the lower deck. Under the stairs was a small unnoticed space, covered over by the staircase. It was just large enough for them to lie down Isaac took Zofia’s hand and pulled her into the space. After they were sure no one was anywhere around, they fell into each other’s arms. The feeling of Isaac’s heart so close to her own brought tears to Zofia’s eyes and the water from those tears stained her face as she held fast to him. She pulled back, their eyes locked. She leaned up to him and their lips met. When their skin touched again for the first time after so long, it took Zofia’s breath away. For Isaac, it was the closest he had ever felt to God.

  “I love you, with all my heart . . .” Isaac whispered in her ear after they had made love. “I still can’t believe this is real. You are here with me, in my arms . . .”

  She nodded, too choked up to answer.

  “I will take care of you Zofia, and I’ll take care of Katja, too. I will adopt her, raise her as my own.”

  There was an unanswered question that lay between them. Zofia knew she must tell him. “I saw Eidel.”

  “She is alive?” he stammered. Looking away, she knew he had been afraid to ask what had happened to her daughter. She knew he assumed that Eidel must be dead.

  “Yes, she is alive. When I sent her away to live with my gentile friend Helen, I was in the ghetto, and very uncertain as to what the future would bring. I wanted her to survive. She was just a tiny baby.

  “After the war was over, I went to find her. Shlomie went with me. I had planned to take her with me. But when I saw her, Isaac . . .” She felt the words catch in her throat.

  “When I saw her with Helen, I knew that the baby I had sent away from the ghetto was not the same person as this little girl who loved Helen as a mother. Helen loved her, too. To take Eidel away would have been selfish. It would have hurt her deeply. She didn’t know me; she would have felt that she’d been ripped from her mother’s arms.

  “Helen had renamed her. Her name is now Ellen. I watched through the window as little Ellen played outside with her friends. And it was then that I realized that Eidel was gone. This child that I was watching was Ellen and she was Helen’s daughter. So I left, with my arms and my heart empty.”

  For a while there was silence. He stroked her hair and held her close to him.

  “You are probably wondering who Katja is?”

  “I assumed you would tell me when you were ready,” Isaac said.

  “It’s a long and very complicated story.”

  “Go ahead. I am listening.”

  “It’s strange. I’m not sure how you are going to feel about it, but I will tell you.”

  He did not speak. He just continued to rhythmically stroke her hair.

  “When I was a prisoner in the concentration camp, I was selected to be sent to the home of one of the SS Officers. He had a sick wife and wanted a female prisoner to take care of his home and their daughter. His name was Manfred Blau. Do you know this name?”

  “Nu? Doesn’t everybody know the name of such a terrible man?” he seethed.

  “He was a terrible man, but his wife, Christa, was not terrible. In fact, she was very kind to me. Katja . . . she was the little girl that Manfred and his wife Christa had adopted from the home for the Lebensborn. You know what the Lebensborn is?”

  “No.”

  “It was a program where the Nazis were trying to make perfect Aryan children. They would mate a German woman with an SS officer. Then, when the baby was born, unless the father wanted the child, the Lebensborn took the baby. When a German couple could not have children, and the father was in the SS, they were given permission to adopt one of these babies. Katja was one of the babies born in the Lebensborn. Manfred and his wife Christa could not have children, so they had adopted her.”

  “Oh, my dear God! They thought that they could build a race of people the way that dogs are bred.”

  “That is exactly right. Anyway, the Blau’s adopted Katja. But when I met her, Christa was sick. Very sick. It was heart disease. She was always weak and tired. I spent most of my time taking care of Katja. I practically raised her.”

  “This was before we met? Before you escaped?”

  “Yes. I loved Katja like she was my own. I missed my Eidel so much, it was good to have another child to nurture. I have come to regret being involved with Eidel’s father, and I will be forever sad that my mother would not support me during my pregnancy, but Fruma and Gitel showed me I could endure anything. Never did I regret having my baby. I can say the same about the Blaus; working for Manfred Blau, having to submit to his whims for my own preservation, was awful, but being in the position to care for Katja was never a hardship. When I escaped Treblinka , I assumed my time with the Blaus had ended. But it hadn’t.”

  “So, how did you find Katja again?”

  “I went to the trial for Manfred, the trial in Nuremberg. I testified against him.”

  Isaac took her hand and nodded his head. “That must have been very hard for you.”

  “It was terrible. The entire time I was there, I had to look at his face. I had to remember the terrible things he did to me, to the others; it was like reliving the nightmare all over again. But once I’d finished telling my story, I finally felt free. It was strange. It was as if I’d let go of the past and could finally live my life without thinking about what happened.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Anyway, I was staying in a hotel in Nuremburg for the trial. The night after I had testified, Christa came to my hotel room. She begged me to take Katja. She said she knew that she was dying and did not have much more time. She said she would not feel good about leaving the child with Manfred, even if he was acquitted, but we both knew Manfred would be convicted.”

  “So you agreed to take Katja?”

  “I agreed.”

  They were both silent. Isaac squeezed Zofia’s hand. “She is a pure Aryan. She has the blood of the Nazis running through her veins. You know that?”
>
  “She is a child, an innocent child, which is all that I know. She is not a Nazi. She doesn’t even know what the word Nazi means.”

  “You love her?” He asked.

  “Very much. She is like my own daughter, my own blood.”

  For a long time he said nothing. The old ship rocked forward and back, in conjunction with the waves. Then Isaac lifted Zofia’s chin and looked into her eyes. “If you love Katja, then I, too, will love her. We will raise her as our own child. We will raise her as a Jew in the Covenant of Abraham.”

  “And after we have our own children, what then?” Zofia asked. After the miscarriage in the woods, Zofia was not sure that she could bear children, but she wanted to hear Isaac’s answer.

  “Then Katja will have a brother or a sister.”

  Her heart swelled with such love for him that she felt it might burst. “Isaac, what a good man you are. And how I love you.”

  He leaned over and kissed her.

  Often at night, screams could be heard echoing through the ship, as some of the refugees awakened with nightmares. No one mentioned these things, but they all knew that the dreams were of the horrors that the survivors had endured, terrors that would haunt them forever.

  Katja and Rachel had become good friends. They spent their days together, and seeing them at play gave Zofia peace of mind that she’d made the right choice for Katja.

  One afternoon as Isaac took a nap, Zofia watched Rachel and Katja as they played with three boys: Mendel, who was Rachel’s age, and two others who were a few years older.