Levi's War

by Julie Thomas

  Cindy turned the medal over in her hands. David was in the bathroom. It was a beautiful thing. Shiny. Sombre. A true reflection of the bravery it represented. She understood why Feter Levi had refused it, and yet the fact that the family had been so unaware of why he’d been offered it frustrated and irritated her. She was a woman to whom prizes and honours mattered.

  To think that Levi had been offered the highest award for bravery bestowed upon a civilian in the United Kingdom and he had turned it down! The years of bragging to her friends she’d been denied. Well, not anymore. As soon as they got home she would throw a huge party and show off the medal. Daniel could play for her guests, and she’d get the best catering firm in town to do the food. She smiled.

  Across town, Maestro Rafael Gomez was also preparing for the party. He was a sixty-two-year-old Spaniard who had been at the top of his game in the realm of classical music for over thirty years. He’d spotted Daniel Horowitz when the boy had won an international violin competition at the age of fourteen and had mentored him ever since.

  ‘How does it feel, knowing Simon won’t be there?’

  The question was posed by his wife, Magdalena Montoya, who sat at the mirror in the bathroom and finished her makeup.

  ‘I know it in my head, but it won’t be real until we are all watching Dan play,’ he replied.

  ‘I imagine they are still reeling from the revelations about Levi,’ she said. He turned and looked at her.

  ‘It is hard to believe. I remember him as such a quiet man, so content to sit and watch, you know. And yet we all saw flashes of anger and passion in him.’

  She stood and walked through to stand in front of him. ‘Remember him the way you do, that hasn’t changed,’ she said.

  He kissed her. ‘When he thought we were all doing something else and couldn’t hear, he would sit at the piano and play. Just for the sheer love of music. That’s what I will remember.’

  An hour later people flooded up the steps of Sergei Valentino’s Mayfair mansion. Sergei was a product of perestroika. Russian-born, he’d made his money in oil and gas and had homes in Sussex, London, New York and Monte Carlo. He was a massive man, over six foot five and two hundred and eighty pounds, but he wore exquisitely handmade clothing which hid his bulk. He was a patron of the arts, music, art, ballet, opera, and he loved the people who created the art as much as they loved him.

  His home in Mayfair was a semi-detached mansion, painted white, with a black front door. Light shone from every window of the large building, and people were scrambling in all directions, putting the finishing touches to the essentials of the evening. Sergei didn’t do things by halves — there were buckets of champagne on ice, and trays of canapes, and the flower arrangements were magnificent. Uniformed butlers were getting ready to take hats and coats, and others were preparing the glasses for the gold trays.

  People chatted and laughed as they moved through the double doors and into the music room. At one end of the room a full orchestra sat on a platform and played. At the other end guests formed groups, sipped champagne and ate beluga caviar and oysters.

  ‘David,’ Rafael said as the family walked across the room towards him.

  ‘Maestro.’

  Gomez shared a bear hug with every one of them. ‘I am so looking forward to seeing this documentary,’ he said. ‘You know, it was simply amazing to hear about Levi’s war at Simon’s funeral. And to think we didn’t know!’

  ‘We saw it this morning, you’ll enjoy it. They’ve done a wonderful job —’

  ‘Daniel! My boy.’

  It was a roar of noise, and Daniel turned just in time to prepare himself to be engulfed by Sergei’s arms.

  ‘Hello Sergei,’ he said from the depths of the Russian’s Armani jacket.

  ‘I trust you have brought her,’ Sergei said, letting him go.

  Daniel nodded. ‘Yes I have; she’s with the security guard.’

  ‘Good, good. I haven’t heard her for months, and I get withdrawal symptoms,’ he said.

  The Guarneri violin was called Yulena after Sergei’s aunt who had been a concert violinist, murdered by the KGB when they thought she was trying to defect to the West.

  ‘How did the ceremony go?’ Gomez asked David. Before he could answer Cindy leapt in.

  ‘It was wonderful, Maestro. He was wonderful. It is such a beautiful medal.’

  David reached into his pocket and drew out the case. He opened it and showed them the medal nestled inside. ‘I can’t wear it, I don’t have that right. But I brought it so you could have a look.’

  Gomez took it from him and ran his finger over it. ‘Dear Levi. So much we didn’t realise, how he must have suffered,’ he said softly. Sergei put out his hand, and Gomez gave him the box.

  ‘I always liked your uncle,’ he said to David, ‘in his own way he was feisty. He stood up to me. I remember when he first saw the Dürer painting he wanted to know why my father hadn’t tried to trace the owners if he knew it was stolen.’

  David smiled at him. ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘He came to like you too.’

  Daniel looked at his watch. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, I need to get ready.’

  He left them and walked away towards the orchestra. Gomez watched him and then smiled at Cindy.

  ‘He’s grown up, our boy,’ he said.

  She gave a rueful shrug. ‘Sometimes I miss those days when he needed me to be there before he performed.’

  ‘Oh he’ll always need your approval, you know that,’ David said, and squeezed her shoulder.

  Kobi and George came through the door and caught sight of the group. Kobi gave them a small wave.

  ‘There’s Kobi with his new man. He’s very handsome,’ Cindy said. Gomez was about to say something, but the two men reached them.

  ‘Hello everyone, this is George Ross . . . and George, this is David and Cindy and Maestro Gomez and Sergei Valentino.’

  There were handshakes all around, and then Maestro Gomez excused himself.

  Five minutes later, Rafael Gomez stood on the podium and addressed the crowd.

  ‘This evening is a celebration of the Horowitz family members who are no longer with us. Benjamin, Elizabeth, Levi, Simon and the twins Rachel and David. Four of them died during the war, and two lived to a remarkable age. All of them demonstrated extraordinary bravery.

  ‘There is no better way to celebrate their lives than to listen to Simon’s grandson, Daniel, play his Guarneri del Gesú violin. He plays this piece, a favourite of his great-grandfather’s, to honour all the generations who have gone before.’

  Daniel put the violin to his shoulder and tightened the frog on the end of the bow. The violin’s sparkling rich varnish caught the light as it moved. He played Debussy’s ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair’, the piece that Simon had played when he was first allowed to play the Guarneri. The soft melody filled the room, as smooth as a piece of silk, and haunting, achingly beautiful. His tall, lean body swayed, and his eyes closed as his fingers moved over the fingerboard and the bow swept up and down. When it came to an end, the room erupted into applause.

  David and Cindy clinked their champagne glasses together.

  ‘Here’s to the past and the future and to our boy, you lovely man,’ she said softly.

  Kobi and George exchanged a smile.

  ‘We should drink a toast,’ David said. ‘To Feter Levi . . . and his war.’

  ‘To Levi’s war,’ they all said in unison.

  David touched the medal with his finger. ‘Dad’s war, Rachel’s war and now Feter Levi’s war. An ordinary family who lived through extraordinary times.’

  Cindy smiled at him. ‘A family I am very proud to be a part of,’ she said.

  Kobi nodded. ‘Me, too,’ he said.

  ‘And me,’ Elizabeth said.

  David’s eyes glinted with unshed tears, and he raised his glass again.

  ‘To the Horowitz family, all the heroes we remember,’ he said. The others looked at him as he stood, watc
hing his son on the podium holding the violin by its neck, his glass raised in his right hand and his left hand touching his father’s St George Cross.

  ‘To the Horowitz family,’ they replied in unison.

  EPILOGUE

  Twenty-five years after that night, Daniel Horowitz’s second son, Ben, embarked on a genealogy project. He decided to research his family tree.

  Firstly, he found his great-great-great-grandparents on his father’s side, Hans and Sarah Horowitz. Hans was a banker in Frankfurt. In 1925, two of his sons, Benjamin and Mordecai, had moved the family bank to Berlin and established it in the Pariser Platz. That same year, his eldest son, Avrum, had immigrated to New York.

  Benjamin had married Elizabeth Silverman, the only child of Levi and Anna Silverman from Nuremberg. They had four children: Levi, Simon, and twins Rachel and David. They lived a prosperous life in Berlin, full of music and proudly German, until the rise of the Nazi party in 1933.

  Everything Ben discovered dovetailed with the oral family history that had been handed down. Levi was a spy and had fought with the partisans in Italy in World War Two, Simon was interred in Dachau, Rachel was a member of the Red Orchestra resistance group and died in Auschwitz, and David, her twin, had died while still a young boy in Dachau. Their father was also recorded as having died in Dachau.

  Levi, their eldest child, was the father of David, who married Cindy, and David was the father of Daniel, who was a concert violinist and Ben’s father. It read like a passage from the Torah, with the same names surfacing in different generations.

  But when Ben came to investigate the fate of his great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth, who was supposed to have died in Auschwitz, he could find no record. Eventually, with the help of the massive digital DNA database and a search that threw up a documentary of Shoah stories recorded in Israel in 1986, he stumbled upon Elizabeth Bernstein, a woman who had lost her family but survived the horrors of the camp, remarried and settled in Israel.

  And that was how his grandfather, David, discovered the last piece of the Horowitz puzzle. Elizabeth Bernstein, née Silverman, later Horowitz, David’s grandmother, was buried in Jerusalem. She had died in 1988. David took his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren to visit her grave. They laid a stone for each of Elizabeth’s children and her surviving grandchildren, so the circle of the Horowitz family was complete.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Some years ago, one of my friends, Dorothy, told me I should write the story of Levi’s war. I was confused. At that stage I had only written The Keeper of Secrets and had no intention of writing any sequel, let alone two sequels. I thought Levi had explained, after a fashion, what he did in England during World War Two. She corrected me and said, ‘But you and I know that his war was a great deal more exciting than that.’ The seed was planted, and after much thought the story of Levi’s war emerged. So thank you for the seed, Dorothy.

  This book has been the hardest thing I’ve ever written, for several reasons. The subject matter was dark in places, and some of characters were not only real, they were the most evil of humankind. Do not underestimate the toll it takes on you to write Hitler as a character in your novel! But I have also been unwell at times, and that has made the actual process of writing hard. I am a congenital heart patient, and had my corrective surgery over fifty years ago when it was the pioneering stuff of medical legend. I have also been a diagnosed depressive since 2008, after many years of undiagnosed suffering. I owe a big thank you to the doctors who have helped me overcome my health issues, my cardiologists, Claire O’Donnell and Mark Davis, my grief counsellor, Bobbie, and my wonderful GP, Dr Nigel Schofield.

  I am blessed with three older brothers, Richard, Geoffrey and Graham, who are extremely supportive and make having siblings fun. I have a whole bunch of loveable nieces and a nephew, in particular my nieces Sally and Sarah, who keep an eye on their eccentric aunt.

  I have wonderful friends who offer encouragement and helpful comments — Reuben (my brilliant Beta reader), Ruth, Victoria, Mike, Dorothy, Dave, Sharon and Kimmy, to name but a few to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

  And a very special thank you to my vicar and dear friend, Jan, and to Deryck and Heather, wonderful friends and such creative people. The four of us have dissected the characters and discussed the plot of this book for hours. If it wasn’t for the suggestions and the ‘war stories’ you shared with me, I would still be stuck!

  Lastly, of course, my publishers at HarperCollins, Alex Hedley, Sandra Noakes and most especially my magnificent editor, Nicola Robinson. You guys are the personification of patience and care, and HarperCollins made my lifelong dream of being a published author come true.

  I’ve lived with these characters for a long time, and I love them dearly. Just thinking about them brings tears to my eyes. They are combinations of all the true stories I have read and listened to, and in many ways the real acknowledgement should go to all the survivors, their descendants, the soldiers and the bystanders who have shared their experience of war with the world.

  My father was a World War II Spitfire pilot, and in one of his letters home he said, ‘We have a duty to ensure this never happens again.’ When he wrote those words he had no idea of the scale of the horror that was to unfold in liberated Europe. But sadly we, as a species, have not stood by that duty. It has happened, to some extent, over and over again. Man’s inhumanity to man. Man’s inability to see people as individuals and not as a race. If you take one thing away from ‘The Horowitz Chronicles’ let it be this:

  It’s a simple truth. Prejudice is much harder to maintain when you break down the barrier of ignorance, my son. You see us now as individual people with talent, not subhuman vermin, and that makes it harder for you to hate us.

  Simon Horowitz to Kurt in Dachau, page 183,

  The Keeper of Secrets.

  A GRAIN OF TRUTH

  All three books in this trilogy revolve around what I call ‘a grain of truth’. In other words there are real people and real events at their heart.

  In The Keeper of Secrets I used the missing 1742 Guarneri del Gesú violin as the springboard for the story and incorporated the rise of the Nazi party, life in Dachau concentration camp and the story of Soviet Russia. This was a story about possession, ownership and redemption.

  Rachel’s Legacy told the story of the Red Orchestra Network, a real resistance movement in Berlin. All the members of the organisation were real people, and their fate was all too true. This was a story about identity, sacrifice and nature versus nurture.

  In this case, there are two different elements from World War II.

  Firstly, the role that Levi shoulders as a spy, parachuted behind enemy lines, is based on refugees who were recruited to spy for the British. They were trained and sent back into Nazi-occupied Germany. Most were captured, tortured and sent to die in concentration camps. Perhaps the most famous was Violette Szabo, a French-born English Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent. During her second mission into occupied France she was captured, interrogated and tortured, and then deported to Germany, where she was eventually executed in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her posthumous George Cross was presented to her five-year-old daughter, Tania.

  The things that Levi reports back on happened during the war at the times he encountered them. Had he, actually, been a real spy he would have been able to alert the Allies to the things he overheard. There were over a dozen assassination attempts on Hitler, and there was one at the Berghof. I took a little licence — the actual assassin never got near him.

  The second thread is the story of Assisi. This captured my heart when I happened upon it while researching Rachel’s Legacy, and I was determined that Levi would make his way there. The three major characters of that story — Father Don Aldo Brunacci, Bishop Giuseppe Placido Nicolini and Colonel Valentin Müller — were all real people and they did what they do in this story. They are three real heroes. Müller must have been a wonderful man to risk what he did, the on
ly real German World War Two officer I’ve ever read about who I liked. And the Catholic clergy hid, saved and nurtured over three hundred Jews. Not one Jew was deported from Assisi.

  This last book is about what makes you who you are, and what keeps you from being who you should be. Levi had a far more interesting war than we thought in the previous two books. He was on the spot for some momentous times and he survived to tell his tale.

  BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

  What motivated Levi to agree to go back to Germany?

  How well do you think Levi controlled his emotions and reactions?

  Who killed Rolf — Levi or Werner?

  What language did Levi pray and think in?

  What was it about Levi’s circumstances that contributed to him being such a great pianist?

  Why did Levi agree to go to Italy?

  How justified was Simon in his anger at not having been told the truth? Why did Levi keep his war a secret from Simon?

  How conflicted did pretending to be a Christian priest make Levi?

  What effect, if any, did Levi’s sexuality have on his decisions?

  Did Levi make the right choice in deciding to go back to England? Did Levi, in effect, have any choice?

  Why had Levi refused the George Cross?

  How do you think Levi would have wanted to be remembered?

  Did David make the right choice in telling the family his secret?

  Also by Julie Thomas

  Rachel’s Legacy

  When Dr Kobi Voight is given a set of old letters by his mother, he has no inkling that they will lead him around the world and deep into his family’s tragic past.

  Within the letters – written in Hebrew and filled with delicate illustrations – lie the reflections of a young Jewish woman, forced to give up her baby daughter while fighting with the Resistance in Berlin. Who is the author, known only as ‘Ruby’, and what became of her child? And how does a priceless work of art, stolen by the Nazis, form part of the unfolding mystery?