The Girl from Berlin--A Novel

by Ronald H. Balson

  “No. I concede he was a Nazi officer.”

  “As regards the picture of Carlo Vanucci and Friede Baumgarten, and the portion of a deed that sits on the table, do you concede that Vanucci was a designata by agreement?”

  “I do not concede, but I will not have any evidence to disprove it.”

  “Very well. Is there any other evidence that you can produce if we gave you more time? Otherwise, I think we should proceed today.”

  “Not so fast, Your Honor. We have evidence that will show that Gabriella Vincenzo is not entitled to own the property. According to the petitioner’s statement of the facts, Carlo Vanucci was a designata for the benefit of Friede Baumgarten, a Jew who wanted to hide her ownership.”

  The judge wrinkled his forehead. “Is there something wrong with a Jewish person using a designata agreement? I think that was done quite often during World War II.”

  “That is not my point. The nominee agreement was for the benefit of Friede Baumgarten, not Gabriella Vincenzo. Therefore, the deed from Vanucci to Vincenzo would not conform to the designata agreement and would be void.”

  The judge rested his chin on his hand. “Let’s suppose you are right. If the deed from Vanucci to Vincenzo was void because it was not contemplated by the agreement, that still would not vest ownership in Quercia, would it? I mean, how does that argument benefit your client?”

  Lenzini sneered and pointed at Gabi. “Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, but she’s not going to get the property either!”

  “Oh, I see the wisdom of your position. It’s personal. If you can’t win, at least make sure your opponent suffers, am I right?”

  Lenzini shrugged. “If we can’t have it, she doesn’t get it either.”

  “Avvocato Lenzini, when there is a nominee agreement and the principal dies, don’t her rights pass on to her heirs? Here, Friede Baumgarten was the equitable owner. Why wouldn’t Signora Vincenzo have inherited the right to own the property?”

  “That’s the whole point,” Lenzini said, once again glaring at Gabriella. “She is not an heir. I happen to know she was born in France in 1939. I can do research too.”

  Gabi began to shake with rage. She started to rise from her seat when Liam tapped her on the arm. “Let the lawyers handle it.”

  “I can speak for myself,” Gabriella said, rising to her feet. “I am the daughter of Ada Baumgarten, the granddaughter of Friede Baumgarten.”

  Liam hung his head. Just because Ada said that Gabi was her daughter didn’t make it so.

  Gabriella continued. “I was adopted. Friede was my grandmother. Here is my driver’s license. It reads Gabrielle Baumgarten Vincenzo.”

  “Anyone can put a middle name on a driver’s license,” Lenzini said.

  “Where did the adoption take place, Signora?” the judge asked.

  “Well, I was ten years old, but I think it was here in Siena.”

  Catherine looked at Liam. She was grimacing as well. Gabi’s statement could not be true. Friede died in 1944. Ada died in 1945. Gabi could not have been adopted when she was ten years old in 1949.

  “I will recess the court for fifteen minutes. Avvocata Romano, would you take the signora down to the Siena clerk’s office and bring me a stamped adoption certificate for Gabriella Baumgarten?”

  “Gabrielle, Your Honor.”

  The judge nodded. “Gabrielle Baumgarten.”

  During the recess, Catherine said, “What do you know about this, Floria?”

  “Honestly, Catherine, I know nothing. The signora never speaks of her childhood or her relationship to Ada. I have heard her refer to Ada as Mama, but only in passing, from time to time, and only indirectly. Today in court is the first time I ever heard her say she was adopted. I’ve never read Ada’s story. It is written in German and I don’t read German. I had it translated into English at the signora’s instructions and I sent it to you right before you came.”

  Giulia and Gabi returned to the court holding a document. “Adoption certificate, Your Honor. Dated September 6, 1949.”

  The judge examined the document and smiled. “Gabrielle Baumgarten. She is indeed an heir. Anything else, Avvocato Lenzini?”

  “No,” he said with a sour expression. He turned, began to put his papers into his briefcase and reach for his coat when the judge said, “Just a minute, Avvocato Lenzini. We’re not finished here. Please have a seat.” Then to his courtroom deputy, he said, “Would you send for the prosecutor, please?”

  “The prosecutor? I have done nothing wrong.”

  The judge shrugged. “Well, that remains to be seen. First, let’s resolve the case at hand. It is my judgment that Friede Baumgarten was the principal of the designata agreement and the equitable owner of her farmland. The deed from Carlo Vanucci, from the nominee to the principal’s granddaughter, was valid and would have vested ownership. Quercia’s claim to title could never be valid because it was subject to seizure by a Nazi officer in pursuance of an illegal act. Accordingly, the court holds that Gabriella Baumgarten Vincenzo is the legal owner.

  “Now onto VinCo. It appears that VinCo, a company owned and operated by a Nazi officer and his children, acquired its properties by unlawful seizures in 1944. That needs to be rectified. The Terezín Declaration requires restitution of seized real property. Therefore, your client, VinCo, must return all of its properties to the parties that owned them in 1944.”

  “Your honor, VinCo’s property is worth many, many millions of euros.”

  “That will be just recompense for the survivors, won’t it?”

  Lenzini laughed sardonically. “Good luck to the prosecutor. How is he going to find nine families from eighty years ago? They probably all died in concentration camps. The prosecutor is going to have an impossible job.”

  “And you’re going to help him, Avvocato Lenzini. You are going to use your clients’ files and their cooperation in locating the heirs of each of the parties whose property was seized. If you can’t find the original families or their heirs, the Terezín Declaration instructs us to declare the property as ‘heirless.’ In such cases, the lands are to be sold and the money given to Holocaust survivors or used for commemoration of destroyed communities.”

  “But, Your Honor…”

  “And you will perform these services free of charge.”

  “What? Hold on, Your Honor, I am not the guilty party. I have only been a lawyer serving my clients.”

  “You have knowingly advocated on behalf of a Nazi organization in violation of the Terezín Declaration and Italian law. You admitted in open court today that you knew who your clients were and that they obtained the properties during the Nazi occupation. And then there is the matter of the murder of Fabio Lombardo, the missing registry book and the possible corruption of Signora Vincenzo’s previous attorneys.”

  “But, Your Honor, you have no evidence that I had anything to do with Signor Lombardo, the registry book or any bribes.”

  “That is why I have sent for the prosecutor. Eventually your guilt or innocence will be determined. In the meantime, you are to suspend your practice of law and immediately place yourself at the disposal of the prosecutor’s office to cooperate in any way you can. The extent of your cooperation may be a factor at your sentencing. You are not to leave the jurisdiction without my permission. You will turn in your passport this afternoon.”

  Then, turning to Gabi, he said, “Signora Vincenzo, the court has found that you own your property free and clear. This case is dismissed. Good luck to you.”

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  Pienza, September 2017

  THE CASE WAS OVER, Gabi’s land was secured and Catherine and Liam were making plans to return to Chicago. Gabi prepared a special bon voyage feast. “Pasta bolognese. A recipe taught to me by Grandma Friede, may she rest in peace,” she said proudly.

  Giulia, Gunther, Catherine, Liam, Gabi and Floria took their seats around the dinner table. Gabi said, “Floria, please go to the cellar and bring up two bottles from Ada’s Vineyard.�
��

  “The blue-ribbon winners?”

  “Yes, the ones titled ‘Meditation 1997.’”

  Midway through dinner, Gabi set her fork down. “I suppose you’re looking for an explanation,” she said. “You have a right to ask why I didn’t tell you the story myself, why I forced you to find the truth in my mother’s narrative.”

  Liam nodded. “Well, it would have been nice.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. The fear of losing this farm, so dear to my family, had placed me in a dark corner. I had been through two lawyers who told me I had no right to the land. Lenzini seemed to be in total control, and I was about to lose my family’s farm. It meant so much to my mother and my grandmother that I just couldn’t face losing it. As Mama used to say, I went back into my turtle shell. I was emotionally paralyzed. You were my last hope, but in truth, I didn’t think we’d win. I would have told you the story, but I couldn’t. I knew you’d learn the history from my mother, and if the answers were there, you’d find them.”

  “The answers were there, Gabi.”

  “I’m so glad you got to know Ada. I want you to encourage Tony to read the story as well. He’s the next in line to inherit these vineyards, you know.”

  “I’m sure he’ll care for them just as lovingly as you have.”

  Gabi smiled. “He’d better! Floria and Franco will stay on to make sure he does.”

  “So, finish the story,” Liam said. “Obviously Ada lived. What happened after you boarded the train?”

  “Well, I’m afraid I made quite a scene at the Theresienstadt railroad station. My mother didn’t tell me that I was going to get on the train alone. I had a paper in my hand with a number on it. Mama didn’t have a paper. She kissed me good-bye and told me that she couldn’t go right away. She would come later and find me in Switzerland. I was only five, but I could see right through that story. I became hysterical. ‘You lied to me!’ I screamed. ‘You said you would never leave me. You lied!’

  “‘I’m only leaving for a little while,’ she said. ‘We only have one train ticket and that one is for you. The other passengers will take care of you and make sure you get to a children’s home in Switzerland. I will come later.’

  “‘No, you won’t; no, you won’t,’ I said. ‘It’s just like my other mother. You promised. You promised. You said you would never leave me.’

  “She hugged me. We were both in tears. ‘Please get on the train, Gabi,’ she pleaded. ‘Please don’t let that train leave without you.’

  “But I wouldn’t. I grabbed her skirt and held on to it as tightly as I could. I said, ‘I don’t want this ticket, I don’t want to go to Switzerland. I don’t want to go anywhere without you. I want to stay with you.’

  “While we were arguing, a man stepped down off the train. ‘I have a ticket and I can’t use it,’ he said. ‘I need to stay here with my wife. She’s sick and she needs me. Here, you take my ticket. You need it.’

  “Mother asked him if he was sure, and he said he was. With tears in her eyes, she took the ticket, gave the man a hug and the two of us boarded the train. It took us directly into Switzerland. Mother found a job playing her violin in a restaurant. We stayed in Zurich until 1946. Then we made our way back to Italy and moved onto the farm. Just the two of us.”

  “So, in 1946 you and Ada moved back and took over the farming operations?”

  Gabi nodded. “We did. We had help, of course. Guido and his family were there the whole time, and the vineyards were well cared for. I went to school in Pienza and then went on to get my viticulture degree at the university in Siena. We managed the farm together, Mama and me. That is why the fields have done so well.

  “I married Angelo Vincenzo in 1964. He was Tony’s uncle, his father’s brother. Mama, Angelo and I all lived here on the farm. Angelo was happy to take a hand in farm management, because he had an accounting background. Those were happy days.” Gabi paused and took a breath.

  “Mama became ill in 1998, just after her eightieth birthday. Her disease took her six months later. Angelo died in 2005. Now there’s just Floria and me.”

  “That’s a wonderful story, Gabi,” Catherine said. “And all those years, you never heard anything from VinCo or the Frumans or the Kleiners? Nobody wanted your land?”

  “Not until last October.”

  Liam turned to Gunther. “Whatever happened to Obersturmführer Kleiner? I hope he got what was coming to him.”

  “Eventually, he did,” Gunther said. “I was curious as well, and I asked my young associates to dig up what they could. As we know from Ada’s story, Kleiner was in charge of the roundup and deportation of Jews from Rome. He sent two thousand Jews to their death. Kleiner was also the person who demanded that the Jewish community pay fifty kilos of gold. After Rome fell to the Allies, Kleiner moved into SS headquarters in northern Italy and was active in rounding up Jews from the smaller towns. He bears responsibility for the massacre of three hundred and thirty-five Jews and partisans in the Ardeatine caves.

  “After the war, Kleiner was sought as a war criminal, but he escaped through the SS network into Greece. He used his stolen wealth to set up an estate on one of the Greek islands and from there he managed his VinCo property with his sons. He was discovered in 1951, and just before his arrest, he escaped again, this time to the south of France. The Nazi hunters caught up with him in 1954, and he was extradited to Italy for trial before a military tribunal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1958.”

  “What happened to Elsa Fruman?”

  Gunther shook his head. “We don’t know what happened to Elsa, but it is likely that Kleiner considered the Quercia property as a gift to her and his daughter, Gerda. I’m sure that his sons kept track of the Frumans, and when Gerda died, they knew they had to acquire Gabi’s property to keep the world from finding out that all these properties were seized. The Berlin probate case lasted almost a year, an administrator’s deed was issued to VinCo and the case was sent to Lenzini in October 2016.”

  “Enough talk of the Kleiners,” Gabi said. “We are celebrating tonight! Floria, let’s fill our glasses and raise a toast to my nephew, Tony, who found these wonderful people.”

  “To Tony! Saluti.”

  “I have a question,” Liam said. “Did you ever learn anything about the man who gave your mother his train ticket?”

  Gabi nodded. “We didn’t know him. When we arrived in Zurich, one of the passengers told us that the man had been on the Jewish Council and had served the community well. But his wife wasn’t sick. She had died months earlier. He saw our dilemma and was just a good man who wanted us to have his ticket.”

  “Whatever happened to the Romittis?”

  “Mama spent years looking for Natalia and her family. She finally learned that Natalia’s partisan unit had been taken in 1945. Naomi and Nico, despite Natalia’s warnings, returned to their home in Pienza and were caught in a sweep. Records from Yad Vashem confirm that they perished at Auschwitz.”

  After dinner, Gabi rose from the table, left the room and returned with a violin case. On the side, in white paint, was the legend: BAUMGARTEN, PHILHARMONIE. “This was Grandfather Jacob’s violin, the one my mother played after he died. It has been played at the Philharmonie, the Bologna State Opera, the Baths of Caracalla, the Rome Opera, the concert hall at Theresienstadt, the restaurants of Zurich and of course, in this very house.” She opened the case.

  “May I?” Catherine said, and Gabi nodded.

  Catherine gently lifted the violin from its case. “It’s beautiful. It’s like touching a holy object. Do you play it as well?” she asked.

  Gabi shook her head. “This violin would know if someone else was playing it. My mother taught me to play, but I am not in her class. I play her other violin, the one she played before her father died.” She smiled. “Sometimes I play in the middle of the night. I pretend she’s sitting with me, telling me to practice my scales.”

  “After you returned to the farm, did Ada eve
r play professionally again?”

  Gabi smiled. “I know what you’re asking. It was always her dream to be a permanent member of a major orchestra. The first woman. And she was, for a brief time, in Rome. But I guess dreams change. Sometimes you get new dreams. She was offered the opportunity to rejoin the Rome Opera Orchestra in 1946 and she turned it down. We had been through a lot and she wanted to stay on the farm. Also, she had bitter memories of Rome and wouldn’t have been comfortable living there. Maybe she wanted mother-daughter time. She did make several guest solo appearances. She even played with Gigli on two more occasions. He died in 1955. I think she played as much as she wanted. I never sensed that she was unfulfilled. That would be out of character for my mother.”

  “She was a remarkable woman, Gabi.”

  “Everything you read about her, all of the wonderful qualities she had, the ones you learned about because you read her memoir, please know that they are all true. She was an angel. I have something else to show you, my prized possession”

  She left for a moment and returned with a leather portfolio. “This is the original memoir. It is in my mother’s handwriting, the one she wrote while we were in Theresienstadt. I found it in my bag when we arrived in Zurich. I’ve kept this memoir right next to my bed for all these years. As my mother intended, they are my bedtime stories.”

  Catherine nodded. “She will never leave you.”

  ALSO BY RONALD H. BALSON

  The Trust

  Karolina’s Twins

  Saving Sophie

  Once We Were Brothers

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RONALD H. BALSON is a Chicago trial attorney, an educator, and a writer. His practice has taken him to several international venues. He is also the author of The Trust, Karolina’s Twins, Saving Sophie, and the international bestseller Once We Were Brothers. You can sign up for email updates here.

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