by Bodie Thoene
The soldiers and dogs followed after. They flanked the Jews, herding them like cattle. Whips raised and crashed down on the heads of anyone in the way. It did not matter how fast they ran; it was not fast enough. Mothers and fathers carried shrieking children, but the blows fell on them as readily as they landed on the young men of the group.
The dogs’ teeth tore open the legs of men and women alike. That blood mingled in rivers on the road.
Everywhere people fell into the mud and were beaten for their failure. Others who tried to help them up were also beaten for their efforts. “Run faster, Papa!” Rifka shouted as a snarling Blackshirt slashed at a woman beside him.
Lazer willed himself to go forward. Rifka tugged his arm. Two kilometers to the Polish border! How his lungs ached!
“Run, run, you filthy Jewish pigs! Out of Germany, and don’t come back!”
Lazer stumbled and fell in the mud. An old man fell on top of him and took the brunt of blows that came down with the rain. Rifka screamed. Berta wept and begged the German to stop. When the old man’s arms went limp, the soldier lost interest and turned to yet another victim.
Lazer pushed the dead body from him and struggled to stand. Berta clutched his hand and pulled him. “Get up, Papa! Hurry! Get up! Run, or they will kill us too!”
The Polish border was in sight when the Nazis began to fire on stragglers. “WOMEN FIRST!” shouted a bloodied man. “WOMEN THROUGH THE CHECKPOINT FIRST! WOMEN AND CHILDREN.”
Lazer pushed Rifka and Berta away from him. Berta reached out for her father, but he denied her stark terror and urged the two women forward as gunfire crackled over their heads.
On the Polish side of the line, border guards stood gaping at the terrified mass.
“Open the gates! Open the gates!” The shouts were indeed in Polish, but how could the guards check so many at once?
From behind the gunfire continued, the smell of gunpowder an acrid contrast to the rain. In the front women were pressed painfully against the wire of the gates as those in the rear surged forward.
“Open the gates! Please! We will be crushed, and our children with us!”
Lazer lost sight of Berta and Rifka. He prayed that he would not lose his footing. To fall meant certain death. How many have been trampled? He wondered. What would the Germans do with the Jewish dead who lined the road these last two kilometers?
“Open the gates!” he heard himself cry. “We are Polish! We are Polish! Can’t you hear? That is why they beat us! We are Polish!”
***
There was a space of only twelve feet between the Western Wall and the shabby houses of the Moroccan neighborhood. The houses of the Muslims of Morocco always stood at the backs of praying Jews like Rabbi Lebowitz. Some of the chosen were ill at ease as they prayed before these stones. After all, more than one rabbi had been killed as he raised his hands to the Holy Wall and lifted prayers to heaven.
But Rabbi Lebowitz was not nervous. He had decided long ago that there was no better way for a Jew to die than in the posture of fervent prayer.
For this reason, he breathed easily as he lifted his prayer shawl over his head and let the soft wind rustle the pages of his Siddur. Before these individual stones of the Holy Wall, the old rabbi lifted his heart to the Lord of heaven.
Today the narrow space before the Wailing Wall was almost empty. There were a few worshippers who, like Rabbi Lebowitz, had come with their petitions written out to slide between the chinks in the wall. Some sat on a wooden bench to pray. Others leaned against the cool of the stones that were tarnished from the hands of two thousand years of loving touches. A soft wind whispered down the alleyway to twirl the fringes of prayer shawls and tug at aged beards. On such a day the old man lifted his eyes to the crisp blue slit of the sky and imagined the winds were stirred by the wings of the angels who hovered above this place. Ah, there were always angels here, everyone knew that. It was said that this part of the wall had been built by the beggars of Solomon’s time, and that on the day of the Temple’s destruction the angels had linked their wings around the Wall and the command had been given: This, the work of the poor, shall never be destroyed!
The Shekinah glory of God remained here, and at certain times the very stones wept for the destruction of the Temple.
Was there a better place, then, for Rabbi Shlomo Lebowitz to bring his request before the Lord? Was not this sheer face of hewn rock the one place on earth where a chink remained open to the throne room of the Almighty?
Into that small opening, then, the old man urged his request. Perhaps the wings of the angels fluttered when they heard it. Perhaps their stirring carried the prayer of the old man near to the ear of the Almighty. Perhaps they smiled at such an old fool who came every day, rain or shine, with the same prayer on his lips.
More plaintive than the call of the ram’s horn seemed the words of this prayer: “With your mighty hand, reach down and carry your children home to this place, this small piece of earth. For the sake of your name, for the sake of your promise, call out to the north and bring them home that the kingdom of your Messiah may be established, and His throne forever in Jerusalem!”
Could the Lord ignore such a prayer? And always there was a small postscript to this faithful request: “And while you are at it, Lord, if you don’t mind too much, bring Etta and Aaron home along with the rest of your scattered children, nu? No matter what you may have heard me think, this is still our home. Just between you and this old rabbi, such a small thing. And I would be eternally grateful for the favor.”
***
By the time the Western Union messenger raised his hand to knock on the door of Rabbi Shlomo Lebowitz, a small crowd had gathered around to hear the bad news. Telegrams did not come to the residents of Old City Jerusalem unless someone had died. Everyone knew that last night as Arab rebels attacked outposts in Palestine, the Nazis had rioted in the Reich and expelled twelve thousand Jews to Poland. No doubt there had been many deaths during that brutal pogrom.
Rabbi Lebowitz wiped his hands on a dishtowel and opened the door. He looked first at the grim-faced young Arab messenger who propped his bicycle against the wall and then doffed his Western Union cap as he presented the telegram.
From the small group of onlookers, Eli Sachar called, “Sit down, Rabbi! Sit down before you read it!”
The ladies auxiliary of Tipat Chalev all chimed in with agreement. Young boys from Torah school urged their venerated rabbi to sit. “Sit! Nu?”
The rabbi took the yellow envelope and paid the Arab messenger a shilling. Then he left the door to his tiny flat open and motioned for his friends and neighbors to join him inside.
A man did not wish to open a telegram alone, after all.
He muttered a prayer as he sat slowly at the table. His friends stood around him. His students. His neighbors. They whispered, “Who could it be?”
“Maybe Etta?”
“Maybe it did not go well for her. She was expecting.”
The phrase was expecting was certainly ominous. It had the sound of words that are said over the departed: “She was a good person. She was liked by everyone. She was expecting . . . ”
“Maybe it isn’t her. It could also be his brother in Chicago, America, nu?”
Rabbi Lebowitz had thought of nothing else since news had come of the violence on the German border last night. Could there be any connection between that and this terrible yellow envelope?
“Be brave, Rebbe Lebowitz.”
“Remember, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”
The old man nodded. His eyebrows knit together in a solid black line as he opened the envelope. Carefully he unfolded the paper. The address read: WARSAW POLAND.
“Warsaw,” he said.
A shocked sigh passed through the room. So it had to be her. His only daughter!
He opened the next fold and began to read. His head moved back and forth. He opened his moth and cried, “Oy! Etta! Etta!”
Sad shakes of each head.
So it was her! “When did it happen, Rebbe Lebowitz?” Hannah Cohen moved through the crowd.
“Oy! The Eternal . . . be praised! It is a baby boy! They will call him Yacov!”
Good news in a telegram was hard to understand. Did this mean that Etta had died, but the baby had lived? Half a blessing. Or had Etta lived and the baby also? If this was so, then why send a telegram and give everyone a heart attack?
“Is Etta . . . ?” Hannah broached the subject.
“Fine! Fine!” Rebbe Lebowitz wiped away tears of joy. “They sent the wire so I should not worry with all that is going on. My son-in-law has gone to aid the Jewish refugees at the border. They ask that we might help with a relief fund of some sort. OY!” He raised his eyes to heaven. “They are all fine! We have a new little Lubetkin! A new grandson! He is named Yacov! In the midst of such a terrible night for Jews, still . . . God proves He is an optimist, nu? He sends another Jewish baby into the world!”
The damp stone walls of the little apartment now echoed with applause and cries of “Mazel tov!” So. At least there was some good news from God this morning for Jews, nu?
What had begun as a morning filled with fear and foreboding was transformed into a day of energetic joy. News of the baby passed from mouth to mouth. Word of the request from Warsaw for help in aiding the refugees gave everyone a new purpose—money to collect from those few who had it, socks to knit, clothing to collect and mend and package. The Jews of Jerusalem were poor, but they were not so poor that they could not help their unfortunate brothers and sisters in the border camps of Poland.
The telegram was posted on the wall of Tipat Chalev for everyone to see. Beneath it was a list of items needed for the refugees. And scrawled across the yellow paper were the rabbi’s words: GOD IS AN OPTIMIST!
Everyone understood the meaning.
12
“And Yet I Must Believe”
Somehow the numbers of people deported from Germany had not been translated into the reality of human misery that now unfolded before Rabbi Aaron Lubetkin.
Twelve thousand huddled together in the abandoned stables. The sky spit rain until the earth was a quagmire and each footprint filled with water. No hat. No blankets. No food. Only twelve thousand shivering people. Haunted eyes. Bloodied faces. Tears hidden by the rain that seeped through the broken shingles on the roof.
“So many!” Aaron managed a whisper as he and Eduard entered the largest of three stables. Family groups had claimed stalls as dwelling places. Never mind that everything they owned had been confiscated.
Eduard’s face was flushed with rage at the sight of such needless suffering.
From within the unlit stalls, no one looked up at the two men were framed in the entrance to the stables. Aaron and Eduard were just two more bodies among the thousands.
“Where do we begin? Aaron asked.
An answer was not required; a plaintive voice called out from a stall where the door hung askew on its hinges. A woman called in anguish, “Herr Doktor? Are you a doktor, there? You with the bag! Bitte! Please! It is my husband Lazer! Mein Gott! He is . . . please!”
In three steps Eduard entered the stall with Aaron at his heels. A small, thin man lay unconscious on the damp dirt floor. A woman and girl of fifteen or sixteen huddled over him. The unconscious man was almost a luminous white, and Aaron thought for a moment that it was too late for him. Eduard took off his overcoat and threw it over the man as he grabbed the limp wrist and felt for a faint pulse.
The woman was weeping. The girl seemed dulled with the shock of what had come upon them.
“He is alive,” Eduard said. He began to ask the sobbing woman questions. “When did you last eat?”
“Days ago. They came for us at suppertime. Berta and I had at least a bite . . . but not Lazer.”
“Was he beaten?” Eduard probed the man’s abdomen.
“Crushed. The train. Cattle cars. And then at the border, he fell. Someone kicked him, and . . .”
Aaron studied the girl, the daughter of the fallen man. She was pretty, her features fine-chiseled and her brown eyes large and round. But her face showed no expression at the words of her mother. She squatted in the dirt near his feet and simply stared with glazed eyes at the green paint that flaked from the boards of the stall.
Aaron said the girl’s name. “Berta.”
The mother did not notice as she talked on about their ordeal. The eyes of the young girl did not flicker recognition at her name.
Again Aaron said the name. “Berta? You are safe now. Safe in Poland.”
Still no sign of comprehension. Eduard looked up from the father toward the girl. “Your father will recover,” he said without hesitation. “He is exhausted. Do you hear me, girl? He is sleeping. Soon there will be food.”
At last the young woman blinked. Her faded eyes focused, then moved to the face of her father and then to the black bag that marked Eduard as a doctor. The girl began to weep silently. She reached out to touch her mother, who then enfolded her in her arms and wept with her.
Eduard stood slowly. “Keep him warm,” he instructed, leaving his own coat over the frail body of Lazer Grynspan as fulfillment of that instruction. “Berta, when the trucks come with food, you must be the one to stand in line, yes?”
The young woman nodded. Tears still streamed down her cheeks. “Yes,” she sobbed. “When . . . food . . . comes . . .”
***
Mercifully the rain had stopped by the time the bread trucks arrived at all the stables where the refugees had taken shelter.
The lines consisted of thousands like Berta Grynspan who waited for a ration on behalf of thousands more inside the stables.
Rabbi Aaron Lubetkin and Dr. Eduard Letzno had spent eighteen unbroken hours among the refugees before volunteers came to take their places—groups of ten at first, then hundreds. Blankets and clothing were distributed with the food. Enormous kettles of soup simmered over open fires in the table courtyard.
Miraculously there had been only seven deaths throughout that long first day. Most of the victims were old—unable to survive the ordeal of the journey and the cold and hunger and grief. One little boy had died only seconds before Eduard entered the stalls. He had fallen and been trampled. There had been little chance of survival under the best of conditions, but here, it had been hopeless.
Aaron did his best to comfort the family, who were among the Catholics in the group. They asked for a priest to attend them in their grief, and so Aaron had sent for one to come from the village six miles to the east. Some hours later he had passed the stall and paused to listen to the words of the Polish priest: “You are welcome in my parish . . . gather up your things.”
“We have nothing.”
The priest wrapped the dead child in his cloak and stood. “Come with me.”
Aaron turned away and fought to control his own emotion at the sight of the black-garbed man leading his tiny flock out of the suffering. The lifeless form of the child made certain that the family took all their suffering along with them. There would be no joy in the warmth of a fire or in clean beds to sleep in. They had lost a son.
Aaron felt a light tapping on his back. He looked down to see the still-grieved face of young Berta Grynspan gazing up at him. “How is your father?” he asked.
“Better. Sitting up. He ate some soup and bread.” She extended an envelope to him. “The nurse found me some paper, Rabbi Lubetkin. I have written a letter to my brother. His name is Herschel. He is in Paris. Safe in Paris. But he will be frantic with worry. Would you—” she looked hopefully at the envelope—“I have no stamp, you see, and . . .”
Aaron took the letter from her. He slipped it into his pocket. “You have given a return address? Where he may write?”
Berta nodded. “The authorities say we will be here for some time.” She pointed as yet another truck caravan brought supplies into the compound. “At least we will be fed. Someone said they will bring stoves and coal to heat the buildings with. At least we
have a roof.” The young woman uttered these words with a tone of such hopelessness that Aaron found it difficult to respond.
He tried to smile. “Perhaps it will not be long and you will be in real houses, eh?” He patted the pocket that held the letter. “Your brother will be relieved that you are all right.”
Berta shrugged and stared down the long row of stalls. “Paris,” she mumbled. “Maybe we will . . . ” Her voice trailed off, and she walked away from the rabbi without saying good-bye.
***
It was a short walk from the headquarters of the Gestapo on Albertstrasse to the Chancellery building where Adolf Hitler awaited word from Commander Leo Vargen.
The Führer had his suspicions about the possible involvement of certain military leaders in a conspiracy against the Nazi government. With the capture and interrogation of Thomas von Kleistmann, no doubt those suspicions would be resolved.
Beneath his arm, Commander Vargen carried a leather file case containing all the information gleaned from the records and from von Kleistmann himself over the past few days.
Vargen looked up at the great eagle of the Third Reich that spread its granite wings over the entrance to the marble reception hall. The heels of SS guards clicked as he entered. Inside the doors a hundred black-uniformed SS men stood at rigid attention the entire length of the vast hall. Their clean, proud reflections shone on the polished black marble floor.
The hall was said to be longer than that of the Palace of Versailles. The Führer himself had ordered its huge dimensions so that foreign representatives and heads of state might be intimidated by the glory of the Reich. The floors were waxed until they were slick, so that, according to the Führer’s reasoning, foreigners were forced to watch their step lest they fall before the leader of the German people.
Vargen did not doubt these little stories that contained evidence of the Führer’s wit. Adolf Hitler left nothing to chance, not even the choice of floor wax for the Chancellery. Leo Vargen knew that he also must watch his step in the presence of the great man.
