by Bodie Thoene
“Close the window,” Hess begged. “Untie my hands. Let me have your coat!”
Occasional lights from isolated houses slid by.
“I don’t think so. I still do not trust you. If I let you live, and Wolf is arrested, I could not forgive myself. No. It is best if an insect like you does not live.”
“Don’t shoot me, please. I was just—”
“And I don’t like the way you treated my brother, besides. Or Lucy.” Peter raised the gun as if to ready it for the shrill of the train whistle.
“Just a . . . a little joke. Too much schnapps.”
“But you are sober now.”
The head bobbed in wild agreement. “Yes!”
“Good. Now sit on the window ledge.”
“Mein Gott! Don’t shoot me!” He crawled up to crouch on the window ledge.
“I am going to blow your brains out when the whistle blows, Herr Lieutenant Hess. And then I am going to push your faceless body out on the tracks.” Peter was smiling. The hammer on the luger was cocked and ready.
“No! Please, no! Bitte! I am begging! I promise!” He no longer noticed the wind or the smoke from the locomotive.
“When the whistle blows . . . ” Peter raised his voice as the train rounded a curve and began to slow. “Unless—”
“Anything! Please, yes!”
“Unless you prefer to jump.”
Hess’s eyes grew wide as he stared briefly at the gun in Peter’s hand, then out at the passing countryside. He raised his arms as if to dive, then launched himself out of the window like a stark white ghost into the night.
The curtains flapped in the dark compartment where he had been. Peter laughed out loud, then stuck his head out to watch the body of Herr Hess tumble like a stone down the gravel embankment into a hayfield.
“AUF WIEDERSEHEN!” Peter called, and closed the window.
***
“Herr Hess will have a hike,” Peter said to Lucy as the train slipped into the electrified enclosure and up to the platform in front of the customs house. “The night air will clear his head.”
Lucy still looked worried. On the platform two matrons sat inside glassed cubicles flanking separate entrances into the German customs house. One door was marked MEN and the other WOMEN.
Peter followed her eyes and blanched. The physical search! Here Gestapo doctors randomly chose passengers for complete physical examinations. Those wishing to cross into Polish territory from the Reich were required to submit to this, if asked, or face arrest. The obvious reason given for these searches was to make certain that nothing of value was smuggled from the Reich. It was impossible, after all, to conceal currency or valuables in such a condition.
The main side benefit for the Gestapo was the apprehension of male Jews masquerading as Aryans with false passports. Like the men’s room, these examinations had become the gauntlet through which every circumcised Jew must pass to freedom. Not everyone was selected for this indignity—only those who seemed suspicious to the matrons in the glass booths. Lucy was counting on the possibility that once again she could talk their way out of it and the trio could pass with a superficial customs clerk.
***
They were close enough to see the dour expressions on matrons on the customs platform. Voices rang out distinctly in the night air.
“Schnell! Schnell! All passengers disembark! Have your documents and all luggage ready for examination!”
It was perfect except for one minor detail. The train had rolled through the massive wire gates without stopping. The gates had been instantly closed and re-electrified. Train and passengers were now imprisoned inside an enclosure that could not be entered or exited until the deadly current was switched off long enough for the train to slip through the gates on the Polish side of the compound.
Customs and passport examinations when leaving the Reich were the last chance the Gestapo had to apprehend those they considered criminals, whatever the charge might be. Every offense, real or imagined, was considered one final time within this massive barbed-wire enclosure. Every passenger was considered guilty until proven innocent. The electrified fence assured that no one could run away.
There was still a chance for Jacob to retreat from their position thirty yards outside the fence. The gate did not keep them in; it kept them out! It prevented their passage through the other side.
As Jacob watched the examination of the train, he realized that perhaps it was no accident that they had been locked out. The flashlights of Nazi soldiers probed the huge iron hulk of the Danzig train. Every inch was being explored, from undercarriage to roof, for possible stowaways.
They all watched the procedure with sinking spirits—except perhaps Alfie, who seemed untroubled by the fact that they were on their bellies in the underbrush within shouting distance of those who would most like to throw them all into prison. Outside the fence uniformed guards stood every few feet. There seemed no way that Jacob could causally stroll up in his newly acquired SS uniform and order the gate to be opened so that his friends might enter and board the train.
No one dared ask the question that lay heavy on Jacob’s mind. They had come all this way—for what? And now it was only a matter of time before the guard dogs caught their scent and flushed them out.
***
The platform bristled with soldiers and Gestapo inspectors as Peter and Lucy stepped from the train. She held Willie. With her impeccable Aryan looks, it was less likely that she would be asked to strip or ordered to undress the baby for a search.
Willie was miserable. Lucy had deliberately left his diapers soiled so that the inspector would not be eager to examine the child for circumcision.
“Males here!” barked a matron. “Females in this line! Schnell! The train is waiting, please!”
Passengers shuffled onto the cold platform. Some faces were sullen, some fearful. The fearful faces were pulled aside and ordered into the examination rooms.
In the meantime, Nazi officials ransacked luggage; experts who knew every smuggling trick probed the compartments. Up and down the lines officers pulled out suspects, and roughly ordered them to comply.
Behind Lucy and Peter a slight commotion arose as a man and a woman resisted feebly and were handcuffed and immediately shoved out of sight into the room marked DOCUMENTATION VERIFICATION.
“You! To the examination!” the matron said to a timid-looking man three places in front of Peter in line. She skipped the next fellow, a round-bellied Bavarian in Lederhosen and tall woolen socks. She scarcely looked at the man in front of Peter; instead, she blinked in amusement at Peter. “It is you!”
The color drained from Peter’s face. He looked behind him, hoping that she meant someone else! But she was staring right at Peter!
She grasped his arm and pulled him out of the line. Then, whirling around, she spotted Lucy and Willie. “And there is the little brother! Himmel! Look! It is the two brothers!”
She was shouting at the top of her lungs. Soldiers and plain-clothed Gestapo men looked away from their charges. Peter considered running, leaping from the platform and diving into the shadows that flanked the tracks, but he was certain he would be shot full of holes. He prayed they had not captured his mother and sister at this same checkpoint.
Lucy gazed miserably at him. They had tried . . . they had come so close to making it!
“Look, everyone!” the matron’s voice rang out in the night. “Here are the two brothers from the evening paper! Look! The boys who know the Führer!”
Peter’s mouth dropped open. Another matron rushed toward him, carrying the front page of the Nazi party newspaper in her hand. There, beneath the banner headline announcing the formal signing of a non-aggression pact with France, a photograph showed the benevolent Adolf Hitler holding a baby. That very child! Willie Ruger! The one with the stinking diapers! And there was this fine example of young Aryan manhood! Peter Ruger!
“Ach! To think we shake the hand that the Führer has touched!”
Peter glanced down at his own photograph. Could it be? Two adoring brothers within the circle of the Führer’s admiration. Their names were given right there in the caption.
Peter noticed how pale and wild-eyed he looked in the picture. Did no one see that the expression on his face was a grinning, hysterical fright?
“Look! Look how much it looks like him!”
His heart pounded frantically.
“You would like to have a copy of this, I am certain,” said the uniformed officer in charge of the station. He patted Peter on the back and greeted Lucy, the boy’s aunt! He ordered a matron to go fetch two copies off the stack, because the family might have difficulty getting more once they crossed the frontier.
Lucy babbled on about what a delight it was to meet the Führer close up like that, how special that Adolf Hitler had singled out her own nephews for recognition.
Peter moved through it all grinning wildly, like a marionette who had no control over his own trembling legs. No doubt the facial expression he now wore was very much like the photograph in the newspaper.
***
Alfie pulled his toy general from his pocket as they lay hidden in the underbrush. While the others were too frightened by the nearness of danger to move, he played happily with horse and rider.
Lori watched him, taking a strange sort of comfort from his utter trust that they could not be harmed. He whispered to her, “The angels said it is all right. Don’t worry, Lori.”
She smiled at him and put a finger to her lips to remind him of the rule of silence. Instead he tugged on Jacob’s sleeve. He pointed far down the track. “There they are,” he mumbled. “See them?”
“Shhhh,” Jacob warned.
“But look—” Alfie’s voice sounded too loud. “They are not stars or angels! Here come the dogs and their men!”
Five heads turned in unison to stare in horror at the approach of three German shepherd dogs dragging soldiers along behind them as they sniffed the undergrowth outside the compound.
“Headed right for us!” Jacob muttered, banging his fist on the ground. “I will try to distract them. You make a run for it.”
“No!” Lori gasped. “We stay . . . together!” They had come too far for it to end like this. Tiny pinpoints of light probed the bushes. Jacob looked back wildly to see if they could make a run for it. Inside the compound, guards and other passengers were crowding around a young man on the platform. They called out his name, smiled and laughed with him. No one was looking this way. Maybe now?
Jacob jumped to his feet. At that instant a dog lunged against his leash, breaking the hold of his master. Barking and snarling, the animal ran full bore toward Jacob and then, twenty-five yards from where Jacob stood, a naked man screamed and dashed out of a shallow ditch.
Whistles trilled a warning! The celebration on the platform silenced. Jacob ran up the track toward the fugitive, shouting, “Stop that man! Stop that man!”
“Tor auf!” shouted the commandant from the customs building. “Open the gate. Tor auf!”
Someone threw the switch; the red warning light changed to green. Soldiers and guards poured from the compound in pursuit of the shrieking man who now fled to the other side of the tracks in an attempt to escape into the woods.
Dog handlers eager to try their well-trained animals issued the command and pointed toward their target. From a dozen directions guard dogs charged to the capture.
Passengers inside the compound crowded to see, pushing through the open gate to witness what was certainly the end of an escaped convict from the prison camp over the hill!
Alfie stood and slipped the kitten into his pocket. He reached down to help Lori to her feet as Jacob, in his SS uniform, jogged to meet them.
Alfie linked his arm with Mark and Jamie as Jacob had taught him in the drill.
“All right,” Jacob said in a gruff voice. He herded them through the crush of spectators. “That’s enough! Enough sight-seeing, now! An escaped criminal, no doubt. Back on the train! Back on the train. ”
No one noticed as they passed through the gate. “The gate is open!” Alfie smiled at Lori. “They told me they would open it for us.” He stepped into the train. “Did you hear them calling my name? They were cheering, Lori! Tor Alf, they said! Alf . . . just like Mama used to say my name!”
“A miracle, Alfie,” Lori said softly. “Just like you said.”
Epilogue
Captain Samuel Orde had trained his soldiers well.
“Halt, who goes there! Hands up or I’ll shoot!” In his excitement, Artur Bader had shouted the words in his native German. But the meaning was clear enough in any language: I am deadly serious.
Bader took no chances, nor did he wait to see what he had caught. He blew three sharp blasts on the signal whistle around his neck without once taking his eyes or the muzzle of his rifle off the lighter shadow on the hillside.
His alarm was answered by three whistles from the guard post on his left and three more from the right. The sound of running footsteps could be heard converging on Bader’s position. When other guards were covering his flanks he ordered loudly in Arabic, “Come in slowly, with your hands high!”
A low chuckle came from the brush, followed by carefully enunciated English, “Don’t shoot, I’m coming in.”
Bader rocked forward on his feet at the sound of the voice but still did not move or lower his gun. A figure detached itself from the darkness and walked carefully toward the fence surrounding Hanita.
Only when the figure stood beside the barbed wire with both arms raised overhead did Bader advance from his position to a gun barrel’s length away.
“Well done, lads,” remarked the man. “I would have bet a week’s laundry detail that I could still sneak in this way.”
“Captain Orde!” exclaimed Artur. “Is it really you?”
“Well, I’m not the Ghost of Christmas Past, if you follow me. Where’s Zabinski?”
“Here, Captain,” answered a voice from the left.
“Since you’ve caught me, better march me in proper,” suggested Orde.
“Yes, Hayedid . . . Captain. You others, back to your posts.”
“But Captain,” called Bader, “we thought you were dead. You’ve been missing for days! Where have you been?”
“Adding another chapter to the manual,” Orde replied. “Now, are you going to keep me standing here all night, or will you hurry up and open the gate?”
Digging Deeper into
DANZIG PASSAGE
No one who was present at the Wall in Berlin on November 9, 1989—nor anyone who saw even a glimpse of the television coverage—could possibly forget the emotion of that moment when the Wall was finally broken down, the gate opened, after twenty-eight years. Holding candles high, innumerable souls circled the wall in a joyous vigil.
It was a night of loud celebration and shouting . . . and also unfathomable sorrow for so much pain, so many years lost. Tears rained down each face. Once again East was truly meeting West; brothers and sisters, parents and children, were being reunited. And in those candles that ringed the Wall was the symbol of true light once again shining in a dark nation. A nation that had been held captive ever since the horror of Kristal Nacht.
And that takes us to you, dear reader. Have you at times felt as if you are “held captive” by the scars of the past? Do you long for true light to shine once again? We prayed for you as we wrote this book and continue to pray as we receive your letters and hear your soul cries. No doubt you have myriad life questions of your own. Following are some questions designed to take you deeper into the answers to these questions. You may wish to delve into them on your own or share them with a friend or a discussion group.
We hope Danzig Passage will encourage you in your search for answers to your daily dilemmas and life situations. But most of all, we pray that you will “discover the Truth through fiction.” For we are convinced that if you seek diligently, you will find the One who holds all the answers to the universe (1
Chronicles 28:9).
Bodie & Brock Thoene
Seek . . .
Prologue
1. Imagine you are standing at the Wall on November 9, 1989. You have been separated from your brother or sister for twenty-eight years. . . . As you wait for that gate to open, what are you thinking? What are you feeling?
2. Is there anything in your life that holds you “captive by its very existence” (p. ix)? that is a scar across your soul? If so, what is it?
3. How could you “open the gate” (p. xi) of your soul to let true light shine in on that area?
Chapters 1–3
4. Kristal Nacht was carefully planned. “No man was allowed to participate in the demonstration in his own neighborhood, lest he come across a Jewish neighbor and take pity” (p. 5). Do you think it’s easier to do evil to those you don’t know, or to those you know? Why?
5. “Although he trembled at the evil these men brought upon others, he no longer feared what they would do to him. . . . A perfect peace has filled my heart, he wrote in that terrible hour. The mouth of hell has opened wide here, yet I believe in the coming justice of the Holy One. Even now I feel His perfect love, and all fear is cast away from my heart, cast into the fires and burned away” (p. 11). Reflect on your response to 9/11. Was it similar to Theo’s when faced with his own possible extinction, or different? Explain.
6. Have you ever realized, as Lucy Strasburg did in chapter 2, that the person you love doesn’t really love you? that, in fact, that person is merely using you? How did you respond to that knowledge (see how Lucy responded on p. 21)? Did it change your life or thinking in any way?
Chapters 4–6
7. How do you respond when you see someone like Alfie Halder? Or someone who is paralyzed or unable to speak?
