Danzig Passage (Zion Covenant)

by Bodie Thoene

Otto took endless notes, pausing to run his pencil down the page as Churchill moved from one question to another.

  “Have we gained peace by the sacrifice of the Czechoslovakian republic?”

  Otto underlined this question and the next one as well.

  “The question which is of interest to a lot of ordinary people is whether that sacrifice will bring upon the world a blessing or a curse.”

  Otto underlined the word curse twice. He held up his finger sternly to silence Marlene as she strode cheerfully into the room and demanded that music be put on.

  “We must all hope it will be a blessing, that as we averted our eyes from the process of liquidation of a country we will be able to say, ‘Well, that’s out of the way. Let’s get on with our daily life.’ But we in all lands must ask ourselves, ‘Is this the end, or is there more to come? Has any benefit been achieved by the human race by submission to organized violence?’”

  “Why do you listen to this, Uncle Otto?” Marlene chirped. “Boring stuff. And aren’t you supposed to be a Nazi?”

  Peter gave Marlene his most deadly look. She stuck her tongue out at him and retreated to her room to sulk and mumble.

  Peter’s mother brought tea. She sat down at the far end of the table and fixed her attention on Otto. It seemed to Peter that he had seen her look at his father with that same odd mix of respect and fear, during similar moments when Michael Wallich also scribbled notes, or when he had talked in hushed tones to strangers who came to the house.

  Peter had not paid attention to the undercurrents then. Now they pulled him along as well.

  ***

  The words of Winston Churchill whispered in the dark study of New Church. Lori held tightly to Jamie’s hand and wished that Papa could hear this man.

  “We are confronted with another theme. It is not a new theme; it leaps upon us from the Dark Ages—racial persecution, religious intolerance, deprivation of free speech—the conception that a citizen is a mere soulless fraction of the state. To this has been added the cult of war. Children are taught from their earliest schooling the delights and profits of conquest and aggression. A whole, mighty community has been drawn into this warlike frame. They are held in this condition, which they relish no more than we do, by a party several million strong. Like the Communists, the Nazis tolerate no opinion but their own. They feed on hatred. They must seek a new target, a new prize, a new victim. The culminating question to which I have been leading is whether the world as we have known it should meet this menace by submission or by resistance . . . ”

  Then the speech took a remarkable turn. Suddenly Winston Churchill began to speak about the men in Germany who had chosen to resist the Nazi ideology and had paid for it with the sacrifice of homes and work and even lives. Some of those men had simply disappeared without a trace. Their families were also missing.

  He recited names, told stories of individual courage. And then, as Lori held her breath, she heard the story of her own father flood the room.

  “Involved from the beginning against the euthanasia and infanticide practiced in the Reich, Pastor Karl Ibsen and his entire family have simply disappeared from the scene in Berlin. His home has been turned over to the state. His church is condemned. His wife and children have not been heard from!”

  “Here we are!” Jamie cried. “Hey, Herr Churchill! We are still here!”

  ***

  In the mess hall of Hanita settlement, the words of Churchill were translated into half a dozen languages. Orde simply sat among his men and listened without comment—until this moment.

  “We shall meet this aggression with resistance,” he replied, as though Churchill were there among them. He smiled and scratched his head thoughtfully. “Is he talking about Hitler or Haj Amin, do you think?” he asked with a wave of his hand. “Ah well, all dictators have the same boot maker from hell. Some wear bigger boots than others, but the effect is identical, eh?”

  No one was listening to the BBC anymore. Did Hayedid, their friend and commander, mean that they were to go out again? Moshe noted the eager faces of the men who had flocked to the settlement with just such a thing in mind.

  Orde glanced at his watch. “Winston would be the first one to agree that resistance does not mean self-defense alone, lads. There is no moon tonight. Are you well rested?”

  ***

  Anna had not stopped praying for the impact of Churchill’s speech to reach the ears of those who needed to hear. Karl and Helen, along with a handful of others, represented the few who had been willing to speak out. Not enough people had joined them, and now the question remained: What could only one righteous man accomplish?

  Churchill’s voice resounded with the same stirring sound that he spoke with in Parliament. He finished:

  “It is this very conflict of moral and spiritual ideas that gives the free countries their strength. You see these dictators surrounded by their masses or armed men and vast arsenals. They boast and vaunt themselves before the world. Yet in their hearts is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, in churches and schools—all the more powerful because they are forbidden—terrify them. A man chooses to speak what is right and decent; a little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest of dictators is thrown into panic. And so that one man must be silenced. They make frantic efforts to bar words and thoughts. Men and righteousness are made to suffer . . . .”

  Yes. Karl and Helen Ibsen were made to suffer. Thousands of others suffered now, as well. At the end of the broadcast, Churchill appealed for anyone with information about the missing families to contact the Red Cross or the local offices of TENS. Then the red light winked off, and it was all over. No applause—just Winston Churchill in the glass booth mopping his brow and gathering his papers.

  ***

  “Don’t even think about it,” Jacob warned Lori as she looked thoughtfully at the telephone on her father’s desk.

  “But you heard it!” she cried hopefully. “They said to call the TENS office! I know about that. It is the American newspaper office. My cousin Elisa married the fellow who runs it in London, and—”

  “London!”

  “There is an office here in Berlin. A reporter who works for them called Papa once.” She continued to stare at the forbidden telephone as she talked. The more she said, the more reasonable it seemed that they should contact TENS. “Listen, no one knows where we are, no one in the world but us! Now the BBC has broadcast our names and asked for help in finding us. Oh, Jacob! We can call, and they will help us.”

  He was adamant. “They will help us into prison. Or worse. You think the Gestapo is not interested in us as well as our parents?”

  “Not you or Mark. They did not mention you! Just me and Jamie! So let me call and tell them where we are.”

  “And in five minutes there will be a Gestapo prison van at the curb! You are dreaming!” He was angered by her foolishness. “No one is going to get us out of here but us! If it had made any difference, we could have called the British Embassy, told them we were coming in for tea and political sanctuary! Lori, wake up before you get us killed!”

  “Let me telephone! Maybe he can help.”

  Jacob took her by the arms. “Now you listen to me and understand what I am telling you!” He gave her a shake. “Do you know why our parents wanted us out of the country? Out of harm’s way? I’ll tell you! Because on their own, without us to worry about, they can hold up against any pressure. Torture, death even! They were not afraid for themselves! They were afraid for us! For what the Nazis can make them say and do if we are threatened!”

  Tears tumbled down her cheeks. “The law of family guilt.” She knew about it. This law above all others in the Reich kept the people in line. Papa talked about it, calling it the most cruel law of all. The law of hostages.

  “Let me tell you what your father and mother could not stand! They could not bear seeing you . . . hurt.” The Reich had devised a thousand ways to
hurt a young woman like Lori. They would not have to break her arms to break her father. Consigning her to an SS brothel or to duty as a breeder for the SS Lebensborn would be enough. There was much more, but Jacob did not speak these things. The thought of them terrified him for Lori. He knew how Pastor Ibsen would react, simply because Jacob also wanted to protect her. It was a responsibility that had made him more stern with her than loving, perhaps—but the truth was, he cared deeply what happened to her.

  “I . . . I just want everything to be all right again.” She bit her lip and tried not to cry in front of him.

  He pulled her close against him, wrapped his arms around her as he had longed to do every day since they had come here. Laying his cheek on top of her head, he closed his eyes. He had to fill the shoes of her father now. He had to think logically and protect her even from herself if she was not able to think clearly.

  “You know that man who searched the church? A Gestapo agent. I am certain of it. He was looking for you, Lori. I felt it when we were hiding.” He stroked her back. She did not pull away from him. “I thought that if he found us I would have stayed and fought him until you got away.” He frowned, hoping he was not telling her too much. “It is you they want. You and Jamie. My brother and I are Jewish. It is natural that we oppose them. But you see, your father is one of them, and it cuts them to the core that he will never really belong to them. A Gentile and a true Christian. Your father is more a threat to them than you can imagine. And you, Lori are the only way they can get to him.” He lifted her chin and searched her face. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

  She nodded hesitantly and then leaned her head against his chest again. She had needed an embrace, and she was grateful for his show of tenderness.

  ***

  All three boys were snoring. Lori got up quietly and tiptoed out of the bellows room. She felt her way down the stairs and along the corridor to Papa’s study. Closing the door softly, she sat on the floor and pulled the candle and matches from her pocket.

  To strike even one match after dark was forbidden by Jacob, but there were no windows in Papa’s study, converted from an old storeroom ten years earlier.

  The match flared. Lori touched the flame to the wick of the candle, then sat for a while as wax dripped in a little heap on the stone floor. Tall shelves of books ringed her, but not one could tell her what she ought to do now.

  Everything Jacob said made sense, yet Elisa’s husband was the head of TENS. Would they ask for information if they did not have some plan for helping the Ibsen family?

  They could have called a hundred people in Berlin and asked for help long before now. Lori had not done so because Jacob trusted no one. But this . . .

  She carried the candle to her father’s desk and unlatched the secret cubby hole in the back of the center drawer. The address book was still there. She opened it and made this her gauge for making a decision.

  “TENS.” She thumbed through the sheets containing her father’s neat printing. “Timmons,” the entry read. “TENS. Adlon Hotel, room 122, telephone 3-6677.”

  From there it was an easy reach for the phone.

  ***

  At the rattle of the key in the lock, Karl Ibsen sat erect on his bed. It had been a long time since he had seen a human face.

  The heavy door groaned in protest. Arthritic hinges opened reluctantly.

  Framed in the doorway stood another prisoner—black and white stripes, eyes downcast, the thin six-foot frame stooped with the same suffering Karl felt. The face and features had been ravaged by that suffering, and at first Karl did not recognize the man.

  Then Karl gave a small cry of joy. A hand shoved Pastor Nels Ritter into the cell, and the door clanged shut behind them! Karl’s prayers had been answered!

  “Nels!” he cried, embracing the silent brother.

  “Hello, Karl.” The voice of his old friend was altered; joyless. But no matter! They were together in their suffering for Christ! They had spent years upholding each other in prayer, and now they were brought to this moment.

  Karl wept with relief. Nels looked coolly around the cell. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him.

  Nels did not seem pleased to see Karl. Arrested for opposing the laws and the enforced infanticide of sick babies in the Reich, Nels had always been a fighter. Karl knew instantly that something had broken in him; and was it any wonder? But together they could stand the pressure. Here was a gift of God that would make the Nazis wonder what power they were facing!

  “Sit, Nels,” Karl said gently, as though speaking to a child.

  “No.” Nels stood in the center of the cell. He did not embrace Karl.

  “Nels? It’s all right. Whatever they made you say—look at me, Nels. I know your heart. God knows.”

  “Don’t you want out, Karl?”

  “Yes. Of course. Yes.”

  “You know you don’t have to agree with everything they say.”

  “What do you mean?” The first joy ebbed away. Nels had been sent here to convince him. “Please, brother.”

  “Don’t!” Nels raised his hand, a gesture like an axe being raised. “We don’t have to say what they tell us always; just avoid saying what they don’t like.”

  “Is that what you are going to do?”

  “I am going home to my family. And you should do what they want and go home to your children! You think you are Peter or Paul? John on Patmos in solitary confinement? You have children? And . . . they . . . need you, Karl!”

  “Yes.” Karl sank down on his cot, crying openly. In all his weeks of solitary, he had never felt so alone. “And I need them. They are praying. Helen is praying—”

  “Helen can’t pray, Karl,” he blurted out. “She is dead! You hear me? Helen is dead. Give it up and go home to your children! Helen, Helen . . . is dead!”

  ***

  The rattle of night squad gunfire had silenced the last sporadic firing from the walls of the Arab stronghold. This did not mean that the fighters of the Islamic holy war were dead. No. They had simply melted away into the labyrinth of Palestine’s deserts.

  Captain Samuel Orde followed Zach Zabinski to the toppled stone fence where a dead man lay sprawled out.

  “I thought you should see this.” Zabinski shone his flashlight down at the face of the dead man. Blue eyes stared blankly up past Orde, the jaw slack in the relaxed grin of death. The hair was blond and the ash-colored skin was fair.

  “European,” Orde remarked. He shone the light into the man’s mouth, illuminating three gold fillings. “His dentist doesn’t live in Cairo, I can tell you.”

  “What do you make of it?” Zach asked grimly. “Tonight it seemed . . . different somehow. More organized. The grenades . . . ”

  “German made,” Orde commented as he tore away the blood-soaked robe of the dead man. “Must have been the Nazi imitation of Lawrence of Arabia, eh?”

  Zabinski smiled grimly at the joke. Captain Orde could make a joke at the oddest moments! “Not a successful one I would say, eh?”

  The wound went clean through the heart. The foreign soldier died before he hit the stone he lay on. He wore black trousers beneath the robe, and heavy hobnailed boots. Orde had little doubt where the man had come from, but just to make certain he raised the limp white arm.

  “Look at that, will you?” whistled Zach. “What do you make of it, Captain?”

  A small tattoo of twin lightning bolts next to the letter O marked the soft underside of the dead man’s arm. “Come, now. Are you telling me you’ve never heard of this before?” He let the arm fall back.

  Of course. It was stupid even to comment on such a thing. Quite obvious, with all this business of secret signs and sacred mottos and dark rituals. Even his blood type.

  “He’s an SS.”

  “Well done.” Orde sniffed with disgust and wiped a fleck of blood from his hands with a handkerchief. “One of the master race in the flesh. Only now he’s just dust, eh?”

  “Quite dead.”
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  Orde walked away a few paces and called to his men. “Load the bodies in the truck, lads!”

  There were twelve dead among the Arab fighters. Reports from the Arab Higher Committee invariably denied that any Jihad Moquades were ever required to take the quick road to Paradise while fighting the Jews. News of actual deaths might dampen the enthusiasm of even the most dedicated Holy Struggler. Orde, therefore, continued his practice of hauling the bodies of his foes to the nearest Arab police station where he dumped them off with a note pinned onto their clothing: I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME. This always had a sobering effect on potential Jihad Moquades who might have otherwise happily joined the marauders of the Mufti’s terrorist forces. Attacks tended to slow down for a few days after Orde conducted his own body count in this manner.

  “I’d send this one back to Hitler with a note, but I’m sure der Führer would find a way to blame the Jews of Germany.” Orde stepped over the body and made his way to where his men held three prisoners at gunpoint.

  ***

  A tiny mouse of independent thought had appeared within the great halls of the German Chancellory, and the Führer was trumpeting his fury at Churchill’s broadcast.

  It was not Churchill’s reference to Czechoslovakia or racial persecution that angered him; it was the fact that once again the obstinacy of Pastor Karl Ibsen shook the fist of spiritual warfare in the face of the whole Nazi Reich.

  Hitler’s blue eyes turned black with rage. His translator wondered if the Führer’s pupils had dilated completely or if some other dark presence had simply taken control of Adolf Hitler’s human body. It made Doktor Schmidt shudder as he relayed the challenge of the British statesman.

  Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels did not look up to follow the pacing German leader. Goebbels was frightened. As propaganda goes, the news he had for his Führer was not good.

  “Report to me the progress we are having with the reeducation of the German clergy,” Hitler demanded. He paced and turned, snapping his fingers impatiently as he brooded.