by Bodie Thoene
***
From his passport folder, Herschel pulled a black-and-white snapshot of himself. He held it up to the dim light of the lamp on the bed table.
Herschel. Smiling and happy as he stands beside the banks of the Seine River in Paris, he mused. The river is still there. Unchanged. But where has that boy gone? Was I ever there at all? I cannot remember what it was like to smile.
Nathan had taken the picture—so long ago, it seemed. Herschel studied the features of his image and wondered if that was really himself. Perhaps that hour of happiness was just a dream.
But he had awakened. He looked at his watch. Nathan would be waiting for him at the restaurant. Waiting for the Herschel who no longer existed except in this photograph.
Herschel turned the photograph over and then neatly wrote his farewell on the back:
My dear Parents,
I could not do otherwise. May God forgive me. My heart bleeds at the news of 12,000 Jews suffering. I must protest in such a way that the world will hear me. I must do it. Forgive me.
Herschel
He propped up the photo, face out, smiling at him from the bed table. This picture of happier days was all he had left—a sort of miniature memorial of what life might have been for him, for thousands of others who never dreamed it would all come to this.
Herschel fell asleep with the light still burning. He slept with the fitful howling of twelve thousand desperate voices ringing in his mind. The faces of his mother, father, and sister rose up in tortured images, interposed with smiling black-and-white photographs of the better days. The stark contrast of what had been somehow made what was now seem all the more evil.
The world will hear me. I must do it. Forgive me. Herschel.
***
The majority of the staff members had left Paris to attend the coming celebrations of the November Putsch. Ernst vom Rath was left as the senior staff member in charge of the German Embassy in Paris.
The days had been long and uneventful. Tonight when the gates closed and the Nazi flag was lowered, Ernst changed into his dark brown suit and traveled on the Metro to the Strasbourg-St-Denis station. There was an American musical film playing at the Scala Cinema. The marquee was emblazoned with the title:
MARIE ANTOINETTE
Starring
TYRONE POWER – NORMA SHEARER
The film was the talk of Paris because of its atrocious portrayal of the life of the French queen who had been beheaded just a few miles from the theater where the film now played. In France, the film had become a poorly dubbed comedy and the audiences had left the packed theater every night with their sides aching from the American interpretation of the mindless queen.
Ernst needed a laugh. His life in Paris had taken on the same depressing monotone quality it had in Berlin. Of course, in Paris he was not required to strut and heil and applaud the Nazi superstition as long as he was not in the embassy.
A fine mist cooled his face as he walked to the end of the line that snaked down the sidewalk and ended just at the door of Hotel de Suez.
Ernst was sorry that he had come alone. Of course, lately he had gone most places alone. Tonight in the midst of the Paris theatre-goers, however, his loneliness seemed a heavy burden.
Couples were everywhere. Pretty girls held tightly to their escorts. They kissed beneath a forest of umbrellas and laughed about things they had been told about the movie.
“Ah, yes! And in the news film there is a section showing Charles Lindbergh as he accepts the Nazi service cross from Hitler. Imagine! Who would think he would do such a thing? Remember how we cheered him when he landed? It is a betrayal—a betrayal of France!”
So even here in the line of a movie theater, Ernst could not escape the rotten propaganda of his nation’s Führer. A young woman stared at him from beneath her umbrella. Could she see that he was German? Perhaps the cut of his clothes, his unsmiling face . . . She whispered to her companion in a barely audible voice, “Be quiet. He is one of them. A filthy bosche! Do not speak about the Germans.”
Ernst looked away as if he had not heard. For several couples in front of him there was silence along the line. He looked up at the marquee and then down at his shoes as if he were considering something. Then, without a word, he left the queue and walked quickly back to the Metro station to take the next train back to the embassy.
***
Once again Etta rode in the black automobile of the Warsaw priest, Father Kopecky. She looked out the window at the brutal streets of the city and yet she felt safe within this tiny ark.
Father Kopecky was indeed a man of great authority. His indignation rattled the iron cages of the Warsaw jailers, causing them to turn around and point fingers of accusation at everyone besides themselves.
“I will send the car to fetch you at your home at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” said the little priest. “Then the director of the police will be back in Warsaw. He is not a parishioner of mine, but his mother is faithful. The fellow will listen to me.” He smiled slightly. “Or I will have a word with his mother. A formidable woman.”
Etta managed a smile at his words. She was tired. So weary. Had there ever been such a day of fear and trial? She prayed that Aaron was unhurt. She prayed that a deep and peaceful sleep might come upon him so he would not know he was in a jail cell. As for herself, to think of sleep, in spite of her exhaustion, made her feel guilty. How could she sleep with Aaron in prison?
As if he heard her thoughts, Father Kopecky said, “You must let your heart have peace now, Sister Lubetkin. The prophets of old suffered much more than this, and yet the Lord was with them.”
She nodded and averted her eyes from the cross he wore around his neck. It surprised her that he spoke of suffering prophets. Those could not be the same as the prophets of Jewish Warsaw.
“Besides,” he continued, “I am your witness, am I not? I only wish you would have come to me sooner and we might have ended this blackmail business before it got started.” He considered her silence and then began again more cheerfully. “Ah, well, it will be finished tomorrow. This is Warsaw, not Berlin. You will see. In Poland we have our fanatics, but the law is still the law. Go home now to your children and rest. Tomorrow night your husband will be at your side. I promise.”
***
For the thousandth time, Ernst considered vanishing from his Paris post. If he left, he decided, he would do it with more success than Thomas von Kleistmann had done. He would have a plan. Passports made up under several different names. A destination far away from the probing eyes of Gestapo agents and SS goons like Officer Konkel.
Only one thing stopped him from leaving, from vanishing into the woodwork: his family. Still in Berlin, they might fall under the punishment of Hitler’s law that if any one member of a family transgresses, all are held accountable. His aging father was already known for his disapproval of the Nazi party and the crushing of the Reichstag parliament. His father had warned him during Ernst’s last visit to Berlin that he must tell no one about the death of Thomas; that he must not speak out again, or he might find himself also crucified in some dark Gestapo torture cell.
Tonight, the face of Ernst’s father swam before him as he lay down on his bed. The old Prussian aristocrat would be hunted down and arrested in place of Ernst. If the Gestapo could not catch Ernst, they would take his father and mother hostage, and . . .
What was the use? Ernst was trapped. He turned over and stared at the wall. He should be grateful, he reasoned, that he was serving in Paris instead of Berlin. The only thing that could be better is if he could go to America. If only he could somehow go to America and bring his family there!
He fell asleep with that prayer on his lips, and dreamed sweet dreams of freedom.
***
Over an elegant supper of veal and asparagus, Hermann Göring chatted with Theo as if they had never met before, as if the name Jacob Stern was really Theo’s name. Surrounded by half a dozen ministers from within the Nazi Economic Ministry, poli
te conversation drifted toward the possibility of expanded trade for Germany and the lifting of the international Jewish boycott against German goods.
In all of this, no mention was made of the exchange of Jewish assets for increased trade. Nothing seemed to connect the two intertwined subjects. It was as if Göring was saving the real purpose of this meeting for after dinner, after his flunkies and assistants were sent their way and Goring and Theo were alone.
The large grandfather clock in the study struck ten o’clock. Theo half smiled. He recognized the chimes of that old clock, just as he had recognized paintings taken from the walls of his house.
At last only Theo remained. He was a captive. He had come in Göring’s car and so must leave the same way, if he were to leave at all.
That thought crossed his mind as he followed Göring into an enormous library. One entire wall contained the collection of rare books that had once been Theo’s prize possession. How insignificant such possessions seemed to him now!
Göring turned to face him. Smiling, he addressed Theo by his real name for the first time.
“A brandy, Theo?” he asked, pouring two snifters with amber liquid before Theo answered. “You always did appreciate fine things.” He extended the glass to Theo, who took it with a nod and then looked at the wall of books.
“Yes. In some things our tastes are the same, I see.”
Göring swirled his brandy, then sipped it. “In aircraft. In books.” He smiled again, without any pretense or sign of embarrassment. “In paintings. And . . . in women.”
Theo met his gaze. There was bitter amusement in Göring’s eyes. Old friend turned enemy. “You have done well, Hermann,” Theo replied, feeling pity for the man he had once known.
“And how is Anna?”
“Better than you would imagine, I am sure.”
“Did she know you would be meeting with me?”
“She knew I would have discussions with Field Marshal Hermann Göring. Second in command only to the Führer himself.”
Hermann lowered his bulk onto the sofa as he spread a hand for Theo to sit opposite him. Theo continued to stand. He turned to look out the window to where the bonfire blazed with renewed vigor and the sentinels of the morbid vigil began to sing the “Horst Wessel.”
Göring broke the silence in the room as the distant voices served as backdrop. “You never were a very good Jew, Theo,” Göring said. “When first I heard you were one of them, I defended you. Said it couldn’t be, that such a patriot of the Fatherland was one of them.”
Theo tore his gaze from the flames as he turned to face Göring. “Strange. I was also surprised when I heard you were a part of this . . . ” He lifted his hand toward the bonfire. “You have come a long way with your Führer. A long way from yourself.”
Göring laughed. “You just did not know me, Theo. I was always this.”
“No, Hermann. Brash and foolish perhaps. The perfect candidate for a hero in Germany. But you were not this. To be what you are now takes years of slow hardening of the heart.”
Resentment twitched on Göring’s face. “Sometimes one must be hard for the sake of one’s race and nation. For the cause of victory, Theo, we Aryans make ourselves hard. We must root out and destroy, you see—kill even the roots of those who do not belong among us.” His eyes narrowed. His face hardened beneath his jowls. “You were never one of us.”
“I am grateful for that, since I have learned from you what such belonging means.”
“We are the power of Germany now, and you see what we accomplish,” Göring countered.
“The death of freedom.”
“Freedom is not dead in the Reich.”
“Only those who desire freedom.”
“Freedom is redefined by the standards of race and purity of blood. If we do not rule over you, then surely you will rule over us.”
“You have forgotten that God rules over all.”
“Which God? The Jewish God? The Christian God?”
“They are one and the same.”
“We have chosen another god who will rule over millions across the world. Those who follow your weak and worthless God of love will die, Theo, because they have no strength to fight.”
Theo did not answer him. He looked first at the fire outside on the lawn, then at the shelves of gleaming leather-bound books on the wall just behind them. Göring had taken them from Theo’s shelves and replaced them in exactly the same order. He ran his finger along a row of books until he gently touched the small blue and gold volumes containing the complete works of the poet Lord Bryon. There were seventeen volumes in the set.
“You are familiar with these books?” Theo asked.
Göring nodded, pleased at his own memory. “The definitive edition. Published in 1833, I believe. Quite valuable.”
“But have you read them?” Theo chose one book, took it down, and opened it.
“No. But I am familiar enough with the value of such editions that I did not allow them to be burned.”
“The value is not in the binding, Hermann, but in the words within.”
“A fundamental difference between you and me. We see value in different ways.”
Theo thumbed through the pages. “Yes. And that tragic reality separates us.”
“Tragic to whom?” Hermann scoffed. “Not tragic to the Aryan race. Only tragic for those over whom we rule and those over whom we will rule around the world very soon.
“And after your rule ends? What then, Hermann?”
“The Third Reich will reign for one thousand years.”
“So I heard. But you will not. And so, what then?”
Göring flushed at the mention of his own end. “Others of our race—they will remember what we have done here.”
“Yes. I do not doubt. I pray they will remember.” Theo lowered his gaze to the pages of the book. “It is a pity you have not read—”
“To what purpose?”
“A vision of judgment. It is written here. The words of a man long dead still speak in these pages.” Theo’s gaze silenced Göring. “Here Lucifer had much to say to God about the souls of kings who stand in judgment.” He began to read:
“On the throne
He reigned o’er millions to serve me alone . . .
. . . they are grown so bad
That hell has nothing better left to do
Than leave them to themselves: so much more mad
And evil by their own internal curse,
Heaven cannot make them better, nor I worse.”
Theo raised his eyes.
Göring’s face was set with defiance. “What has that to do with me?” he demanded.
“Surely you must listen, Hermann, before it is too late for you!” Theo sat down across from him. “You say the whole world must serve you, bow to you, slave for the sake of your Aryan god and ideals.”
“Yes! That is how it will be!”
“You reign over millions.”
“Yes!”
“But you serve only the Prince of Darkness and Death!”
Göring paled. Had he heard the whisper of some warning in his own soul? He did not answer. Thoughts—and even a shadow of fear—crossed his face. And then . . . the hardness descended like a curtain of steel. He snatched the book from Theo’s hand and stared at its pages, then stood and stalked to the window, throwing it open to the chill of the night. He shouted to the men who ringed the fire.
“Come in!” he called. Then he shut the window and turned, smiling, to Theo. “I have brought you here to kill you,” he said in a cheerful voice. “And I find that you have strengthened me. Deepened my convictions as to certain values.” He strode to the fireplace, and in a gesture of contempt, tore the pages from the book and tossed both book and pages into the flames. The fire roared hungrily, devouring the pages and then the book cover as Theo watched.
A dozen SS troops crowded into the room. They looked at Theo with the same hunger as flames for fragile paper.
“Tonight we ar
e going to offer a sacrifice to our gods.” Göring swept a hand over the wall of books. “You are right, Theo. Our ideas of value differ. I should be more careful what I consider worthwhile.” He turned his gaze on the eager young Titans. “Burn these books. All of them. Not one page of this filth shall remain in the Reich.”
Theo stood. He stepped back and watched grimly as the men shouted and threw the precious volumes down in irreverent heaps on the floor and then carried them out by the armload to the funeral pyre.
Göring clasped Theo by the arm and led him to the window to watch as sparks of truth rose up to appease the god of Nazi ignorance.
“That is you, burning out there, Theo Lindheim. All your thoughts. Everything you are. See how the flames of our fury consume you. And you are dying there. Page by page, word by word, letter by letter, you blacken and shrivel and perish! I don’t have to kill your miserable Jew body—I have a much better plan! You can take word of your death back to England. Tell them that you have witnessed the death of your God and yourself tonight.”
“Someday you will stand before Him in judgment, and then you will know that every word you tried to destroy and every innocent life you took is eternal,” Theo replied. “You are the one who burns out there—your last chance to cling to Truth.”
Göring’s face registered disdain. “What is Truth? Truth is what we make it to be.” He smiled cruelly. “Tomorrow you will see the truth of our Reich, and you will believe in the power.”
41
Plotting the Course of Destiny
The embers of a thousand books sparked in the night air, reflecting on the shining finish of the black Nazi limousine as it pulled slowly from the driveway. From the window of the automobile, Theo could see Herman Göring presiding over the conflagration of books. He gloated in his window. Somehow he still believed that by destroying the pages, he had destroyed the Truth that accused him and would, one day, condemn him.
